As a politics enthusiast who also has an interest and understanding of economics, I really enjoyed this book. I learnt a lot about people and places I didn’t know about already, and deepened my understanding of those I did. What underpins this book is that politics is economics and economics is politics, but yet it is really hard to balance the two. Vince is the ideal person to have written it and I’m glad he did

Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

I always want to improve my understanding of politics and economics but sometimes find it difficult to concentrate and after persevering through 30% of this book, I had to give up and swap for something which would hold my attention.

However, that is not to say it was a bad book, there were some interesting facts in there, it just wasn't for me, although I hope to finish it at some point.

As Sir Vince Cable says in the introduction to Money and Power, “The history of economics is commonly treated as the history of economists and their ideas; rarely as the history of their application and the politicians who applied them.” The book contains Cable’s assessment of sixteen politicians that he believes “could be credited with radical or even revolutionary change in the way economic policy was conducted.” Cable mentions Keynes’s “practical men who are the slaves of some defunct economist” and promises to establish who the ‘defunct economists’ were but also to emphasise the role of the ‘practical men’. The sixteen are:
- Alexander Hamilton
- Robert Peel
- Otto von Bismarck
- Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin)
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
- Ludwig Erhard
- Tage Erlander
- Juan Perón
- Park Chung-Hee
- Lee Kuan Yew
- Margaret Thatcher
- Deng Xiaoping
- Manmohan Singh
- Leszek Balcerowicz
- Shinzō Abe
- Donald Trump

Following the cracking introduction, I started the first chapter – on Alexander Hamilton– with high hopes. Cable strikes a very good balance between enough biography for those of us who aren’t that familiar with the politician; an explanation of the economic theory that influenced them (Adam Smith, in the case of Hamilton); and how the implementation of their policy might have differed from the pure theory. Hamilton believed in Smith’s free market theories but wanted to protect the infant US industries. British and French manufacturers were experienced but the US ones were not. However, Hamilton wanted to encourage US production to put down roots, rather than trust to the free market. Cable tells us that Hamilton was very careful to ensure this, e.g. cutting tariffs on imported inputs to lessen the cost of the final good.

That’s where I was frustrated with the book: being a nerd, I wanted to know more detail about Hamilton’s policies – how high did he set tariffs; which inputs were favoured; can we have longer quotations from Hamilton’s publications? I was even more frustrated by the chapter on Peel: there’s good stuff about the protectionist / free trade arguments over the Corn Laws and their repeal, but almost nothing about what Peel himself said/wrote. But that’s not the purpose of the book: it’s to give us an outline of why Cable thinks these sixteen people are important. And I say “are” because, in several cases like Singh, Abe and (very much) Trump, the individuals are still alive. That adds an extra topicality to the book, as does Vince’s acknowledgement of the impact of covid-19. The book I wanted Cable to write would have been at least three times as long and have one tenth of the audience!
I’m not going to comment on each chapter, but I do recommend the book as an easy read; and giving a fresh and topical perspective on politicians’ thinking. They aren’t all in it simply to get power by any means possible – some of them have thought deeply about structural problems and the theories that might help to solve them. The final chapter seeks to draw out themes and lessons. One last quote from the penultimate chapter: “The economics of Trump and his administration defy simple classification.” Oh, Vince, how right you are!

#MoneyandPower #NetGalley

This fascinating book presents profiles of 16 world leaders who have had a broad impact on we understand the impact of economic theory on political situations. Each leader is given about 20 pages with a bit of biography, consideration of the situation they faced, what they did, how it went and the broader legacy they left. Cable writes with real clarity, summarising complex situations and economic theories in an accessible way. It makes a very enjoyable and informative read.

The value of the book is in the choice of the leaders and the quality of the writing and analysis. Here the selection is really diverse and wide-ranging, running from Alexander Hamilton to Trump, via Bismarck, post-war Germany, Argentina and Sweden, the Asian miracles (South Korea, Singapore), post-Mao China, Thatcherism, post-Communist Poland, and recession hit Japan. He evaluates the achievements in an even-handed way, always trying to sift the good from bad and to giver a fair hearing to supporters and critics, even for a leader like Trump, who is clearly not Cable's cup of tea.

Some of these stories I knew and some I didn't but the sequence of leaders and policies generates its own bigger story, broadly tracing an arc from development economics, opening out to the wider economy and ensuring the stable growth that raises living standards. There is a good mix of global regions and the consideration of both developed and developing economies,

Naturally, the author’s own Liberal agenda comes across: free markets are good and some central direction and pace-setting are also ok, if done to raise living standards and increase competitive vitality. Creating an educational and transport infrastructure are important but he is a bit dubious about attempts to blur economics with morality (Lee Kuan Yew, Margaret Thatcher, and Xi Jinping all lose marks for this). Anything like protectionism, corporate cartels, price controls, natural monopolies, or cronyism are bad. His 16 leaders mainly tend to be those who dismantled barriers, tariffs, and state corporations while also keep an eye on money supply to control interest rates, but he does include those, like Peron and Trump, who did the opposite.