Mad Money

The world's financial system is crazier and even more out of control than it was ten years ago. Mad Money analyzes the erratic nature of change and innovation in financial business in recent years and discusses the weak points--political as well as economic and technical--of a system driven more by volatile markets than by governments. The central issue is global finance; "mad money" is how Susan Strange characterizes the alternately rampant and depressed financial markets of recent years. She sets out here to diagnose the sources and nature of the problem of markets having outgrown governments and to examine its social and political ramifications. Opinionated and brilliantly argued, Mad Money will surely provoke controversy and generate many conversations. Susan Strange's previous book, Casino Capitalism, established her as an authority on international finance and the basic structures of the international political economy. This sequel will reach not only scholars and students but a wider readership, including everyone worried by the yo-yoing of stock markets, the currency turmoil in Asia, and the general mismanagement of money by governments and international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. "In her patented provocative and compelling style, Susan Strange offers us an illuminating, often dark, image of the changing nature of international relations in the next century. Although a liberal at heart, her critical approach in this work challenges many of the central normative assumptions of an unfettered regulatory future of great prosperity and little conflict. This effort represents a cumulative statement of one of the senior scholars of our generation and cannot be ignored." --Simon Reich, University of Pittsburgh