For over forty years in more than sixty countries, Raymond Baker has witnessed the free-market system operating illicitly and corruptly, with devastating consequences. In Capitalism’s Achilles Heel, Baker takes readers on a fascinating journey through the global free-market system and reveals how dirty money, poverty, and inequality are inextricably intertwined. Readers will discover how small illicit transactions lead to massive illegalities and how staggering global income disparities are worsened by the illegalities that permeate international capitalism. Drawing on his experiences, Baker shows how Western banks and businesses use secret transactions and ignore laws while handling some $1 trillion in illicit proceeds each year. He also illustrates how businesspeople, criminals, and kleptocrats perfect the same techniques to shift funds and how these tactics negatively affect individuals, institutions, and countries.
Tabella dei contenuti
Prologue 1
CHAPTER 1 Global Capitalism: Savior or Predator? 11
PART I Illegality: We Like the Money 21
CHAPTER 2 Playing the Game 23
The Dirty-Money User Manual 24
You’re in Business 47
CHAPTER 3 Dirty Money at Work 48
The Corruption Industry 49
The Criminal Component: Drugs, Thugs, 88
and Terrorists
Global Commerce and Tax Evasion: Coin of the Realm 133
CHAPTER 4 Magnitudes and Misunderstandings 162
How Much Money? 162
A Failure Rate of 99.9 Percent 173
Well-Intentioned Efforts 174
The Patriot Act 177
Dirty Money Is on the Rise 182
Chasing Terrorists’ Money 183
Ill-Intentioned Loopholes 186
Haven and Secrecy Structure 191
Falsified Pricing Structure 194
We Like the Money 201
Challenge 205
PART II Inequality: The Gap Matters 207
CHAPTER 5 The Global Divide 210
The Quintile Canyon 210
Measure for Measure 217
It’s an Uncertain World 224
The Monkey Wrench 234
CHAPTER 6 ‘I Don’t Understand’ and ‘Don’t Tell Anyone’ 240
Myths 241
‘Don’t Tell Anyone’ 246
Corruption–At Long Last! 249
Filling Western Coffers: Mum’s the Word 252
Debtor’s Prison 254
What If? 257
Intellectual Gap or Character Gap? 258
CHAPTER 7 It’s the 70 to 90 Percent that Matters 262
It Can’t Last 262
Convergence? 267
The Gap Matters 272
Challenge 275
PART III Disutility: Bentham KOs Smith 279
CHAPTER 8 The Anguish of Adam Smith 282
Theory of Moral Sentiments 283
Wealth of Nations 286
Invisible Hand 290
Das Adam Smith Problem 293
The Tears of Adam Smith 297
CHAPTER 9 The Joys of Jeremy Bentham 300
Jurisprudence 301
Utilitarianism 302
Related Interests 305
John Stuart Mill 307
Problems 309
CHAPTER 10 Philosophy Becomes Culture 312
The Great Infusion 313
Twentieth-Century Utility 319
Twentieth-Century Utilitarianism 321
Inoperable Doctrine, Deadly Practice 323
Disutility 327
Challenge 330
PART IV Run It Right: Trust the System 333
CHAPTER 11 Capitalism’s Achilles Heel 337
CHAPTER 12 Spreading Prosperity 342
Delegitimizing Dirty Money 342
Tougher on Corruption 346
Reining in the Support Structure 346
Mispricing and Transfer Pricing 348
Capitalism’s Contribution to Slashing Inequality 351
‘. . . When You Pay Me What You Owe Me’ 353
Reconstitute the World Bank 360
Justice First 361
CHAPTER 13 Renewing Capitalism 368
Acknowledgments 377
Notes 383
Index 425
Circa l’autore
Raymond W. Baker, after a long career in international business, is a guest scholar at The Brookings Institution and a Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy, both located in Washington, D.C. He appears often on television and radio in the United States and overseas and often testifies before House and Senate committees. Baker has an MBA from Harvard, lived in Africa for many years, and has done business across much of the developing world.
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