The only book I've ever read that made me laugh, salivate and re-evaluate my thoughts about economics – all at the same time. A funny, profound and appetising volume."— Brian Eno, composer For starters, this book is not about the economics of food. It's rather a compilation of personal anecdotes, food history tidbits, and a critique of economic theories to explain the world we live in. Economic thinking - about globalisation, climate change, immigration, austerity, automation and much more - in its most digestible form

However user-friendly the explanations are, many people don’t feel motivated to learn about economics because they find the subject rather dull. Writing gamely and with admirable lucidity, Chang concludes with another metaphor, urging that ‘the best economists should be, like the best of the cooks, able to combine different theories to have a more balanced view’…It’ll help to have Econ 101 under your belt to appreciate this book, but it makes for fine foodie entertainment.”— Kirkus Un libro escrito con sentido del humor, rigurosidad argumentativa, con alcances literarios y culturales interesantísimos.

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For decades, a single free market philosophy has dominated global economics. But this is bland and unhealthy - like British food in the 1980s, when bestselling author and economist Ha-Joon Chang first arrived in the UK from South Korea. Just as eating a wide range of cuisines contributes to a more interesting and balanced diet, so too is it essential we listen to a variety of economic perspectives. The relationship between capitalism and freedom has been conflicted and sometimes even contradictory. That’s very different from the story of ongoing freedom that free-market economists say capitalism brings to us. In the same way that Britain’s pre-90s refusal to accept diverse culinary traditions made the county a place with a boring and unhealthy diet, the dominance of economics by one school has made economics limited in its coverage and narrow in its ethical foundation. He added: “When I was born in the early 1960s, South Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world and life expectancy was 53 years. I’m 59, I should be dead. Economic development has completely changed our life chances and possibilities. In the long run, things can dramatically change.”

Chang does say upfront that this is what he’s going to do – that this isn’t a book about the economics of food per se, but a restatement of his core arguments, with culinary anecdotes functioning as treats to keep the reader interested. And they are, by and large, excellent anecdotes. Chang was born in Seoul in the 1960s and came to the UK to go to university in the 80s. So his life and career have encompassed not only the explosion of British food culture (he confirms, to an audience that might have forgotten, just how ghastly and bland things used to be), but also the development of South Korea, from a poor semi-industrialised state to the global economic and cultural powerhouse it is today.Myth-busting, witty, and thought-provoking, Edible Economics serves up a feast of bold ideas about globalization, climate change, immigration, austerity, automation, and why carrots need not be orange. It shows that getting to grips with the economy is like learning a recipe: when we understand it, we can adapt and improve it — and better understand our world. I have devoted my entire academic career to the study of industrial policy. When I first started doing research on this as a graduate student in the late 1980s, industrial policy for many people was a four letter word—it was something that you didn’t mention in polite company. Today, a lot of countries that used to denounce industrial policy are now very keen to do it. The US is the best example, with the Green New Deal and reindustrialization momentum. Only when we balance these different types of freedoms will we have a more balanced society or more humane form of capitalism. I don’t believe that there’s just one kind of capitalism. There are many different kinds, and we can make institutional changes to make capitalism more humane. Ha-Joon Chang has done it again. His prose delights and nourishes in equal measure. Somehow he manages to smuggle an urgent discussion of the relevance of economics to our daily lives into stories about food and cooking that are charming, funny and sweet (but never sour). In taking on the economic establishment, Chang is like a teddy bear savaging a rottweiler."— David Pilling A brilliant riposte to the myth that policymakers can survive on plain neoliberal fare. Edible Economics is a moveable feast of alternative economic ideas wrapped up in witty stories about food from around the world. Ha-Joon Chang proves yet again that he is one of the most exciting economists at work today."— Owen Jones

P130: “[more re climate change] “…we need to drive less in personal vehicles….” And government has to determine better living arrangements for us- so we can walk to stores or use public transportation. This is the same egomania that underlined Stalin and Mao’s collectivization drives that killed millions. We must all find our own ways to understand (and change) our economy and, with it, the world in which we live and share, in the same way I which we have to figure out our own ways to eat better - for our own individual health and wallets, for those who are producing food, for those who are not eating enough and/or nutritiously, and, increasingly, for the planet.” Chang has made the (sometimes extremely dry and convoluted) world of economic theory much more palatable by wrapping the topics in food; a little economic pig-in-a-blanket if you will.

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Seemingly complicated economic subjects like international trade, automation, inequality, and climate change are all understandable if explained in a user-friendly way. 3. Talking about food is a nice way to get interested in economics. Below, Ha-Joon shares 5 key insights from his new book, Edible Economics: A Hungry Economist Explains the World. Listen to the audio version—read by Ha-Joon himself—in the Next Big Idea App. https://cdn.nextbigideaclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/11023345/BB_HaJoonChang_Mix.mp3 1. Everyone needs to learn economics. This is an in-person event, and the RSVP is only for the internal use of the co-sponsoring organizations: Center for Economic and Policy Research, Public Citizen, and the Institute for Policy Studies' Global Economy Project. We look forward to seeing you at Busboys and Poets. Edible Economics brings the sort of creative fusion that spices up a great kitchen to the often too-disciplined subject of economics.

In Edible Economics, Chang makes challenging economic ideas more palatable by plating them alongside stories about food from around the world. He uses histories behind familiar food items - where they come from, how they are cooked and consumed, what they mean to different cultures - to explore economic theory. For Chang, chocolate is a life-long addiction, but more exciting are the insights it offers into post-industrial knowledge economies; and while okra makes Southern gumbo heart-meltingly smooth, it also speaks of capitalism's entangled relationship with freedom and unfreedom. Explaining everything from the hidden cost of care work to the misleading language of the free market as he cooks dishes like anchovy and egg toast, Gambas al Ajillo and Korean dotori mook, Ha-Joon Chang serves up an easy-to-digest feast of bold ideas. You are what you eat, in the same way that you are what you know, the book seems to say. A seemingly unlikely parallel is drawn between the understanding of food and economic thinking, only to reveal itself as universal and foundational as human existence itself. At the end of the day, we are no hunter-gatherers and our economic activities and financial choices are what brings food to the table. We have a choice, therefore, both in our economic choices and our dietary selections. This book is an encouragement to choose to broaden our culinary horizons and seek a diverse economic diet. Diversity will not only make difficult concepts more palatable, but it will also surely enrich our lives. There has been a lot more industrial policy than people realize. To put it more bluntly, the Silicon Valley would not have existed without US government funding for initial technologies like the computer, the internet, and GPS. All of these were funded by the Pentagon. Semiconductor research was initially funded by the US Navy. This is the intro to economics we all needed 10 years ago in school and it certainly is the one we need now to make sense of all sorts of conversations in the media. The food stories are not just a pretext for a dry lecture, they are fascinating and engaging in themselves - so much engaging that you won’t realize when they morph into the economic ones. The author has an uncanny ability to connect very different topics into one coherent tale - say, pasta and automobile industry, or anchovy, guano and fertilizers.It’ll help to have Econ 101 under your belt to appreciate this book, but it makes for fine foodie entertainment. A lot of countries are being more honest and admitting that the government has always played an important role in industrial development, so they’re now thinking they might as well do it in a more systematic way. In the 19th century, cotton and tobacco, which were mostly grown on plantations that held slaves, were the main exports of the United States. It was not an industrialized country; it was an agrarian economy. These two agriculture products alone provided up to 65 percent of US export earnings. Two-thirds of the exports were produced by slaves. Given this prevalence of unfree labor, first in the form of slavery and then in the form of indentured labor, it is quite ironic that freedom has become the central concept in the defense of capitalism by free-market economists. This said, the connections between ingredients and economic concepts discussed often felt forced and disconnected. While the relationships established are outlined in the index, I felt they get lost in the introductory descriptions of ingredients of every chapter and only forcibly knit together with the economic concept discussed in the last paragraph of the chapter.