Named a Best Book of 2024 by The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times

An eye-opening (The New York Times), absolutely fascinating (Fareed Zakaria, CNN host and commentator) look at a how a century of expanding government has distorted financial markets, stoked massive inequality, and soaked America in debt.

Capitalism didn't fail, it was ruined...

What went wrong with capitalism? Ruchir Sharma's account is not like any you will have heard before. He says progressives are right, in part, when they mock modern capitalism as socialism for the rich. For a century, governments have expanded in just about every measurable dimension, from spending to regulation and the scale of financial rescues when the economy wobbles. The result is expensive state guarantees for everyone--bailouts for the rich, entitlements for the middle class, welfare for the poor.

Taking you back to the 19th century, Sharma shows how completely the reflexes of government have changed: from hands-off to hands-on, from doing too little to help anyone in hard times to today trying to prevent anyone suffering any economic pain, ever. Trading sins of omission and indifference for excesses of spending and meddling, governments from the United States to Europe and Japan have pumped so much money into their economies that financial markets can no longer invest all that capital efficiently.

Inadvertently, they have fueled the rise of monopolies, zombie firms, and billionaires. They have made capitalism less fair and less efficient, which is slowing economic growth and fueling popular anger. The first step to a cure is a correct diagnosis of the problem. Capitalism has been badly distorted by constant government intervention and the relentless spread of a bailout culture. Building an even bigger state will only double down on what ruined capitalism in the first place.

What Went Wrong with Capitalism is a superbly written (The Wall Street Journal), fresh and accessible (Robert Rubin, former Secretary of the Treasury and chairman of Citigroup) look at the issues confronting our capitalistic society and will ultimately reshape how you think about world.

An eye-opening (The New York Times), absolutely fascinating (Fareed Zakaria, CNN host and commentator) look at a how a century of expanding government has distorted financial markets, stoked massive inequality, and soaked America in debt.

Capitalism didn't fail, it was ruined...

What went wrong with capitalism? Ruchir Sharma's account is not like any you will have heard before. He says progressives are right, in part, when they mock modern capitalism as socialism for the rich. For a century, governments have expanded in just about every measurable dimension, from spending to regulation and the scale of financial rescues when the economy wobbles. The result is expensive state guarantees for everyone--bailouts for the rich, entitlements for the middle class, welfare for the poor.

Taking you back to the 19th century, Sharma shows how completely the reflexes of government have changed: from hands-off to hands-on, from doing too little to help anyone in hard times to today trying to prevent anyone suffering any economic pain, ever. Trading sins of omission and indifference for excesses of spending and meddling, governments from the United States to Europe and Japan have pumped so much money into their economies that financial markets can no longer invest all that capital efficiently.

Inadvertently, they have fueled the rise of monopolies, zombie firms, and billionaires. They have made capitalism less fair and less efficient, which is slowing economic growth and fueling popular anger. The first step to a cure is a correct diagnosis of the problem. Capitalism has been badly distorted by constant government intervention and the relentless spread of a bailout culture. Building an even bigger state will only double down on what ruined capitalism in the first place.

What Went Wrong with Capitalism is a superbly written (The Wall Street Journal), fresh and accessible (Robert Rubin, former Secretary of the Treasury and chairman of Citigroup) look at the issues confronting our capitalistic society and will ultimately reshape how you think about world.

Shaped by his twenty-five years traveling the world, and enlivened by encounters with villagers from Rio to Beijing, tycoons, and presidents, Ruchir Sharma's The Rise and Fall of Nations rethinks the dismal science of economics as a practical art. Narrowing the thousands of factors that can shape a country's fortunes to ten clear rules, Sharma explains how to spot political, economic, and social changes in real time. He shows how to read political headlines, black markets, the price of onions, and billionaire rankings as signals of booms, busts, and protests. Set in a post-crisis age that has turned the world upside down, replacing fast growth with slow growth and political calm with revolt, Sharma's pioneering book is an entertaining field guide to understanding change in this era or any era.

To identify the economic stars of the future we should abandon the habit of extrapolating from the recent past and lumping wildly diverse countries together. We need to remember that sustained economic success is a rare phenomenon. After years of rapid growth, the most celebrated emerging markets--Brazil, Russia, India, and China--are about to slow down. Which countries will rise to challenge them? In his best-selling book, writer and investor Ruchir Sharma identifies which countries are most likely to leap ahead and why, drawing insights from time spent on the ground and detailed demographic, political, and economic analysis.

With a new chapter on America's future economic prospects, Breakout Nations offers a captivating picture of the shifting balance of global economic power among emerging nations and the West.

To identify the economic stars of the future we should abandon the habit of extrapolating from the recent past and lumping wildly diverse countries together. We need to remember that sustained economic success is a rare phenomenon.

As an era of easy money and easy growth comes to a close, China in particular will cool down. Other major players including Brazil, Russia, and India face their own daunting challenges and inflated expectations. The new breakout nations will probably spring from the margins, even from the shadows. Ruchir Sharma, one of the world's largest investors in emerging markets for Morgan Stanley, here identifies which are most likely to leap ahead and why.

After two decades spent traveling the globe tracking the progress of developing countries, Sharma has produced a book full of surprises: why the overpriced cocktails in Rio are a sign of revival in Detroit; how the threat of the population bomb came to be seen as a competitive advantage; how an industrial revolution in Asia is redefining what manufacturing can do for a modern economy; and how the coming shakeout in the big emerging markets could shift the spotlight back to the West, especially American technology and German manufacturing.

What emerges is a clear picture of the shifting balance of global economic power and how it plays out for emerging nations and for the West. In a captivating exploration studded with vignettes, Sharma reveals his rules on how to spot economic success stories. Breakout Nations is a rollicking education for anyone looking to understand where the future will happen.

Shaped by his twenty-five years traveling the world, and enlivened by encounters with villagers from Rio to Beijing, tycoons, and presidents, Ruchir Sharma's The Rise and Fall of Nations rethinks the dismal science of economics as a practical art. Narrowing the thousands of factors that can shape a country's fortunes to ten clear rules, Sharma explains how to spot political, economic, and social changes in real time. He shows how to read political headlines, black markets, the price of onions, and billionaire rankings as signals of booms, busts, and protests. Set in a post-crisis age that has turned the world upside down, replacing fast growth with slow growth and political calm with revolt, Sharma's pioneering book is an entertaining field guide to understanding change in this era or any era.

A Library Journal Best Book of 2016

A wake-up call to economists who failed to foresee every recent crisis, including the cataclysm of 2008, The 10 Rules of Successful Nations is a slim primer full of pioneering insights on the political, economic, and social habits of successful nations.

Distilled from Sharma's quarter century traveling the world as a writer and investor, his rules challenge conventional textbook thinking on what matters--and what doesn't--for a strong economy. He shows why successful nations embrace robots and immigrants, prefer democratic leaders to autocrats, elect charismatic reformers over technocrats, and pay no mind to the debate about big versus small government. He explains why rising stock prices matter as much or more than food prices, which measure of debt is the best predictor of economic crises, and why no one number can accurately capture the value of a currency. He also demonstrates how a close reading of the Forbes billionaire lists can offer the clearest real-time warning of populist revolts against the wealthy.

Updated with brand-new data, 10 Rules reimagines economics as a practical art, giving general readers as well as political and business leaders a quick guide to the most important forces that shape a nation's future.