Capitalism Unleashed: Finance, Globalisation and Welfare
Andrew Glyn, Oxford University Press, 2006, 234 pages, £16.99.

Andrew Glyn is a widely-respected political economist who does not publish much, but when he does the wait is usually worthwhile. This concise and well-written book is, above all, a fine piece of modern economic history. Glyn provides a clear analysis of the development of the advanced economies since World War II and the emergence of free market capitalism as the dominant orthodoxy.

Glyn’s perspective is Marxist. Indeed, Marx makes the first of several appearances as early as page two. But this should not put off those readers who are not grounded in the Marxist tradition. Glyn simply explains economic development in terms of the distributional struggle between capital and labour. This proves a useful way of analysing the transition from the industrial conflicts of the 1970s to the new challenges of the 1990s and beyond, including the growth of the financial sector, the emergence of the New Economy, and the rise of China.

Glyn identifies several potential failings in the current orthodoxy, notably its failure to deliver higher growth rates and – particularly vexing for a writer from the Left – the widening of income differentials. A major theme of the book is that a free market economy is not necessarily incompatible with an effective welfare state. Glyn comes out in favour of a state-guaranteed ‘basic income’ to deal with issues of equity and the quality of life, which are so often neglected in mainstream economic analysis. This conclusion does raise more questions than he has space to answer, but if this prompts the reader to investigate these issues further then that may be no bad thing.

Admittedly, this book is not particularly original. At points it reads like the notes for an undergraduate course on the economics of the OECD countries. Nonetheless, this would be an excellent course to take. Glyn’s clarity and careful documentation of his sources makes this book a handy reference. His thoughts on welfare and income inequality are also stimulating and deserve a wider audience.

The upshot is that this book is strongly recommended to a student of economics, or to a general reader with an interest in the subject. Others might find rather less that is new, but will still enjoy the quality of the writing. As a short history of the last thirty years it will be hard to beat.

Julian Jessop
Capital Economics