Customer Reviews

Booty Capitalism: The Politics of Banking in the Philippines

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A strong indictment of the perils of pervasive rent-seeking behavior by entrenched economic elites, "Booty Capitalism" is a highly readable exposition regarding the evident inertia of the Philippine economy. Full of salacious details about Marcos cronies, central bank governors and business tycoons, Hutchcroft's book is nonetheless a somber, deeply insightful historical work focusing on the Philippine banking system, and how that system remains instrumental in maintaining a decayed political and economic structure.

It is nice to see some frank writing about the economic problems that cripple the Third World.

Yes, having an elite who get rich through cronyism has the opposite effect on society of an elite who get rich through production. The author is wise to point out that what he calls "rent capitalism" is fundamentally different from what he calls "production-oriented capitalism."

The only area where this book falls short (probably as a result of the author's desire to stay P.C.) is in emphasizing everywhere how smart Filipino people are. No double some of them are smart. But certainly a lot of them must not be smart to allow a corrupt government to make their country so poor.

John Christmas, author of "Democracy Society"