Abundance and Scarcity

A critique of Ha-Joon Chang's reformism

Abstract

Book review of Edible Economics: A Hungry Economist Explains the World. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2025, 256 p.

In the book, economist Ha-Joon Chang continues his critique of the new capitalist structure and the damage caused by neoliberal policies to various developing countries. The work explores various contradictions of capital, such as financialization as an engine of development, the undervaluation of invisible work such as domestic work, and South Korea's use of international labor to expand its conglomerates. Many suggestions are then developed here for humanizing the effect of capital on the working class. In the review, Rosa Luxemburg's work “Reform or Revolution?” is taken into consideration, which warns of the limitations of reformist economic practices.