This book bundles together an anthology of Dani Rodrik's Project Syndicate articles and other essays on the crises of global capitalism. It expertly alternates between wide-angled and close-up views of issues taxing our economies today: the advance of anti-globalist populism in affluent economies, unrelenting financialization of capital, democratic deficit in the eurozone, and ‘greening’ industrial strategies.

Rodrik's intervention unfolds in a dozen chapters, which one might decompose into four main leitmotifs. First, the Ivy League professor starts with a searing critique of ‘hyperglobalization’ and makes a case for ‘getting the balance right’ (13) between economic nationalism and globalism. In this spirit, Rodrik's argument is a rebuke against post-Westphalian policy arrangements on trade and finance. Put differently, it defends nation-states as the legitimate locus through which markets should be regulated and governed. Second, the author dedicates chapters 2–4 to substantiate why our unit of analysis should privilege the nation-state in ‘a world that is politically divided and economically less than fully globalized’ (26). For Rodrik, the articulation of economic institutions demands more diversity and less integration because communities, organized along nation-state principles, differ violently in their domestic political preferences and conceptions of what public goods to pursue. Relatedly, he exposes such tensions by turning to what he calls ‘political trilemma’ (66) lurking behind the European project: that the European Union remains ill-equipped to reconcile its model of economic integration with democracy and national sovereignty without a fully fledged supranational polity. Only within a plurality of polities or the absence of integrationist institutions does Rodrik envision a genuine space for experimentation, competition, and policy learning. He argues that the Global South can innovate nationally through varied market-building institutions and, thus, dodge the ‘drudgery of manufacturing’ (92). To this end, Rodrik favours an economic growth model based on productivity gains in services by investing aggressively in human capital and institutional capacity-building, instead of mimicking the modernization paths charted by countries in Europe, North America, or East Asia.

A third theme tackles the edifice of economics as a discipline, ideology, and policy innovation throughout chapters 5–8. An economist himself, Rodrik departs from his scientific fellows for overselling globalization and neglecting to explain to the general public its potential downward distributional effects on wages and jobs. He castigates the profession's received market fundamentalism and allegiance to free markets without any sympathy whatsoever to contextual and case-by-case reasoning. He dares economists at large ‘to be open about the ambiguity’ inside the academy and ‘flaunt the diversity rather than hide it’ (138). Furthermore, the author makes a case for why economists should look beyond narrow material self-interests and take the role of economic ideasFootnote ¹ more seriously in influencing political behaviour and societal outcomes. In that vein, Rodrik views economics as policy innovation, a reservoir of ‘politically well-informed ideas’ (200) that can circumvent entrenched interests and unleash creative solutions to generate ‘economic reforms without losing power’ (185).Footnote ²

The final four chapters reveal Rodrik's policy ideas about saving the world economy from itself. Dismissing as passé the compensation of globalization's losers and the ubiquity of free trade agreements and global finance rules, the book advocates for global governance that is ‘light’ (203). This new model rests on a fundamental assumption that rejects the belief that markets can self-regulate, and embeds governance over markets firmly within nation-state structures. It also recognizes that there is no single formula towards economic progress and emphasizes the prerogative of states to safeguard their national regulatory frameworks and institutions. Additionally, it stresses the international dimension in cross-border economic regimes for setting out economic governance functions between national institutions. Finally, the model prescribes that nondemocracies cannot enjoy the same rights and privileges as democracies, as the above principles emanate from democratic debates within states. On this basis, Rodrik places centre-stage the merits of public investments in elevating human development, professionalizing institutions and governance, and transitioning from low-productivity to high-productivity activities. These growth policies are not confined to developing countries, as industrialized states also stand to benefit from enhanced public investments. This is especially true in current debates on the shift to green industries; Rodrik categorically prefers a ‘subsidy war’ over tariff tantrums in promoting the development of clean technologies (259). Without radical changes in our economic thinking and policies, Rodrik concludes that we risk ‘globalization running amok’ (273).

As the book neither offers novel empirics nor systematically develops a new theoretical framework, committed readers will struggle to find an internal thesis that weaves these various themes in a readily intuitive manner. The mode of inquiry implicitly evokes a running commentary against the reigning (although besieged) neoliberal paradigm or what he disaffectionately calls ‘free-market nirvana’ (49). As such, Rodrik's initially intriguing ‘straight talk on trade’ turns out to be somewhat a meandering one. Indeed, his treatment of trade-specific issues (123–126, 210–213, 227–235) plus a number of brief anecdotes peppered throughout the book are evidently parsimonious for an ambitious project that claims to ‘set the record straight’ on twenty-first century trade (xii).

Nevertheless, Rodrik regurgitates (quite rightly so) a familiar diagnosis of global capitalism today, especially in the first eight chapters. His key ideas oscillate across what we may naively call a Mazzucato–Evans–Stiglitz–Streeck axis. Refusing to view the world economy as a ‘global commons’, Rodrik defends at length the role of the nation-state in implementing experimentation and innovative policies, not unlike the notion of the ‘entrepreneurial state’ in advancing US technologies.Footnote ³ Relatedly, he echoes the basic coordinates of the ‘embedded autonomy’ thesisFootnote ⁴ in the sense that a careful calibration between the public–private interface must allow for reasonable proximity to jointly pursue market-supporting institutions and sufficient distance to avert state capture. Nodding to a Stiglitzian visionFootnote ⁵ of a more inclusive global economic architecture, Rodrik also calls on developing countries to ‘develop their vision of a new global economy, beyond complaints about the asymmetric power structure’ by advocating ‘institutional diversity and pragmatic experimentalism in the world economy’ (249). Finally, Rodrik shows some StreeckianFootnote ⁶ moments when he talks about the ills of global capital today: post-2008 stagnation, disproportionate market power of oligarchs, alienation of globalisation's losers, brutal politics of austerity, and so on.

Rodrik's more original claims stand out later in the book where radical concepts like social dumping and public venture capital are introduced. The former pertains to the discretion of national governments to ‘restrict imports that demonstrably threaten damage to [sic] domestic regulatory arrangements’ (231) in order to ‘democratize’ commercial linkages with third markets, especially in the context of free trade. The latter refers to state investments and equity shares in new technologies whose profits will serve as transfers or social innovation dividends (262–263). How these two policy ideas can be implemented effectively, however, remains ambiguous.

At least four main issues linger in relation to trade, global governance, and industrial policies. First, in his reading of free and fair trade (227–235), Rodrik systematically omits the literature on generalized systems of preferences (GSP) organized under the principle of special and differential treatment in world trade law. While the policy effectiveness of northern GSP interventionsFootnote ⁷ in elevating productivity levels in the Global South is mixed, several least developed countries, such as Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ethiopia, and Myanmar, have successfully developed export-oriented productive capacities, thanks to their preferential status under the EU's Everything but Arms initiative.Footnote ⁸

A second point of criticism relates to the book's internal contradictions. While deriding globalist tendencies in structuring the world's economic relations as a ‘fool's errand’ (223), Rodrik nonetheless makes the case for the development of ‘global disciplines’ in the areas of transparency, broad representation, accountability, and evidence-based policies (226). Indeed, his understanding of ‘global governance’ seems peculiar given its emphasis on international arrangements, i.e. relations between nation-states, and not the (co)participation of non-state entities in ‘governance’ modes with nation-states.

Third, while externalizing norms or policy preferences to third countries through free trade agreements (FTAs) can subvert a nation's democratic processes and regulatory prerogatives (233), the fear that large actors will readily exert this influence in actual bilateral deals seems exaggerated, even for a market behemoth like the EU. For example, Brussels negotiated for mutual regulatory equivalence, instead of ‘exporting’ its regimes, through new-generation FTAs with Canada and SingaporeFootnote ⁹ and did not codify stringent human rights conditionalities in the Singapore and Vietnam FTAs.Footnote ¹⁰

Last but not least, the section on ‘inclusive growth in the developed world’ (253–256) discusses US idiosyncrasies solely and neglects to circle back to an earlier discussion on ‘Europe's struggles’ (chapter 3). There is much to Rodrik's criticism against dogmatic structural reforms imposed by unelected international financial institutions on insolvent sovereigns in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Indeed, how could crisis-scarred EU member states with divergent political economies have implemented a policy script of balanced budgets and pro-export growth under the constraints of austerity?Footnote ¹¹ Unsurprisingly, Rodrik presents a binary choice to resolve issues plaguing the European integration project: move towards finalité politique or roll back the single market. Yet it is unclear how either of these polar exits could unleash daring ideas in pursuit of more inclusive growth. Do Europe's commitments to battle climate change and its ‘green deal’ not marginally trump the US position as a ‘climate behemoth’ – one that clings on to what Wainright and MannFootnote ¹² call ‘anti-planetary capitalism’?

Despite its structural limitations, Straight Talk on Trade is a timely part-academic, part-popular reading at a time of global trade imbroglios and, by extension, a sobering reminder for ‘politicians of all stripes’ (274) about the cracks in the global capitalist order, now even more brutally bared by the covid-19 pandemic. While trade policy specialists may lament how Rodrik overlooks certain flanks of the global economic architecture, political economists, public policy wonks, and nonexperts alike will find this contribution thought-provoking as to the contemporary crises in commerce, capital, and climate, and how we may emerge out of them sane, if not unscathed.