When I was growing up in South Korea in the '70s and early '80s, the country was too poor to buy original records. Everything was bootlegged.

I am one of the most successful economists, according to what markets tell us, though most of my professional colleagues, who are much keener to accept market outcomes than I am, would dismiss me as a crank or - the worst of all abuses among economists - a 'sociologist.'

Overcoming the myth that there is such a thing as an objectively defined 'free market' is the first step towards understanding capitalism.

When we assess the impact of technological changes, we tend to downplay things that happened a while ago.

Beijing is trying to split the baby between simultaneously liberalizing the economy and maintaining economic stability, but those two factors are increasingly mutually exclusive.

No one should have to choose between medicine and other necessities. No one should have to use the emergency room every time a child gets sick. And no one should have to live in constant fear that a medical problem will become a financial crisis.

People willy-nilly borrow for consumption. Civil servants willy-nilly borrow for consumption and then wonder why they don't have enough money at the end of the month.

The problem of a rising population destroying more than four tons of soil for every human already alive needs to find its way into corporate board rooms if we are to enjoy future financial, economic and political stability.