Angrynomics

With considerable sophistication and a good dose of humour, this book dissects the popular anger that has made our economics unsustainable and our politics dysfunctional. Lonergan and Blyth rightly call for a reset of our current model of capitalism. To their great credit, they also provide creative – and practical – ideas for moving forward. -- Dani Rodrik, Harvard University
In a series of brilliant Socratic dialogues peppered with a score of real-world stories Lonergan and Blyth explain the roots of our current anger – anger over austerity policies, job losses, stagnant wages, million-dollar salaries for the few, broken health systems for the many. But also anger about an economic ideology and political system that seem to ignore people as they are. What to do next? How to reset the system? Never were the answers to such questions more urgent. -- Branko Milanovic, Graduate Center, City University of New York
This is an excellent, thought-provoking book that should be read by anyone with an interest in economics or politics. 'Angrynomics' is a new term to me but one that should be at the heart of political debate. -- Philip Coggan, author of More and The Money Machine
Everything it addresses – the causes of western democratic anger and how to fix it – has been magnified by the lockdown and the resulting economic deep freeze ... This book is that rare pre-Covid-19 manuscript that has been made fortuitously more relevant by the virus ... Most of us take it for granted that we live in an angry world. Their book makes an optimistic case for how we can escape it ... In recent years, the toxic sense that people are voiceless and action is futile has paralysed our democracies. Angrynomics is a rebuke to that ‘failure of the mind’. -- Ed Luce, Financial Times
A compelling, challenging and incredibly timely book – needs to be read. -- Matthew Goodwin, Sunday Times
Beautifully simple, logical and absolutely doable ideas zip off the pages of a new book by two of the most thoughtful economists in the game ... they are a formidable combination. -- David McWilliams, Irish Times
A rip-roaring read. -- Diane Coyle, www.enlightenmenteconomics.com
Inequality is anger's seed, but it sprouts into rage when people believe that the system is rigged against them ... Lonergan and Blyth have an ingenius solution. -- Philip Aldrick, The Times
Framed as a dialogue between a hedge fund manager (Lonergan) and a political scientist (Blyth), this equally entertaining and rigorous book locates the roots of today’s angry, antiestablishment politics in macroeconomic and financial instability, technological change, and rising inequality, which together have created a sense of economic exclusion and insecurity ... it offers novel policies for stabilizing the economy and for addressing stagnation and insecurity. -- Foreign Affairs