ksensei_k 's review for:

The Finance Curse: How Global Finance Is Making Us All Poorer by Nicholas Shaxson

2.0

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I really wish I could give this book a better rating.
I dove in prepared to agree with the author and discover the nuance of what an overly robust financial sector does to economies, why, how and what to do about it. Some of that Shaxson did deliver and there were a few chapters I found quite engaging and informative, for example, the ones where he talks about the “Celtic Tiger” and offshore finance (makes sense, he authored an entire separate book on the topic of tax havens). His breakdown of some key economic ideas of the previous century, neoliberal thought etc. in the beginning of the book also struck me as quite fair and successful.

However, the further I went into the book, the more sensationalist, “finger-pointy” and comical Shaxson’s arguments and rhetoric became. He is quick with exclamations of mock horror at companies facing a possible need to file US tax returns, inexplicably insists on using words like “titan” to describe hedge fund managers or junk-bond-fueled raiders and labels anything even remotely complex in the financial world “squirrelly business”.
Perhaps, I am just a jaded corporate drone, but a lot of his fist-shaking leaves me shrugging my shoulders. There are many destructive aspects to contemporary global finance (oh wow, who knew?), I am trying to learn more about them, not get an earful of moralistic sensationalizations about pension funds getting swindled and taxes being avoided. Even when his general points are reasonable and true the tabloid language makes them next to impossible to absorb. Here is an especially egregious example of what so irks me:

There’s a third reason for all the snaking chains of corporate complexity, which brings that other large stakeholder into view: the shambling, unloved, grouchy giant that invests in the roads, the courts, the education of workers, the sewage pipes under homes and office buildings, and the other essential things that underpin all of the titans’ profits. Government. After it has picked up the human flotsam from the lacerated pension pots and the layoffs, be they burned-out journalists or the victims of rogue doctors, the government is at least supposed to get a payback in the form of tax levied on corporate profits.

If this kind of delivery is you cup of tea, you doubtless will enjoy the book much more than I did.

Shaxson does a fair bit of introductory explaining throughout the book, which some readers may find very useful, but I personally did not. He is very clear and brief in these summaries, but goes a little too far, for example, breaking down what bank balances are, which seems redundant in a book not targeted at children. I wish he spent time unpacking more complex concepts mentioned in the book, such as different kinds of trusts or some “typical” ways to structure chains of offshore corporations, rather than focused on the simpler foundational terms.

Lastly, while I find the whole idea of “the finance curse” compelling and its existence demonstrable, I am concerned Shaxson stretches it too far, for example, concluding the book with a chapter on CAFOs. Are they terrible? Yes. Are contemporary farming and agricultural practices horrid in general? Yes. Are they a manifestation of “the finance curse”? I am not convinced. The book does successfully demonstrate the bloat and questionable practices in the financial sector, but comes up short trying to expose its poisonous influence on the rest of the economy. Again, I am already in agreement with the author’s thesis, and I was hoping he would elegantly put relevant arguments into words, alas, he doesn’t accomplish that in this book.

Thanks to NetGalley for a digital ARC of this book.