Exit strategy: ending the tyranny of finance

From Italy’s former minister of economy and finance, a provocative and galvanizing jeremiad on the Euro crisis and the global economic status quo. As Europe’s debt crisis persists and the aftershocks of the 2008 collapse hinder recovery across the globe, Giulio Tremonti underscores the dangers that unchecked financial markets pose to democracy, and explains what nations must do to protect their autonomy. Condemning what he calls "marketism"—an insidious ideology that puts the speculative financial market above all else—Tremonti bemoans a world in which finance, not governments, sets the rules and, as a result, determines political discourse. But when finance fails, it is the people who must pay the price, and not just economically. An instant and enduring bestseller in Italy, Exit Strategy calls for sweeping changes in both policy and mindset. Candid and critical as few politicians have been in the aftermath of the crisis, Tremonti breaks down the systemic failures of global finance and proposes a "New Alliance" between citizens and governments to free politics from the thrall of the financial markets, and put the people themselves back in control.