Reference

Sources and further reading.

The master bibliography for the site. Each entry carries a one-line note on why it is here. Time-sensitive figures carry their edition or date, and volatile items such as index scores, tariff status, and the China plan stay on a standing quarterly review.

Primary texts

  • Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 1776. The founding text; source for the system of natural liberty and the invisible hand passage.
  • Karl Marx, Das Kapital, Volume 1, 1867. The most influential critique; source for the capitalist mode of production.
  • John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, 1936. The modifier's handbook: manage the cycle, keep the system.
  • Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, 1942. Source for creative destruction.
  • Friedrich Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, 1944, and The Use of Knowledge in Society, American Economic Review, 1945. The knowledge-problem argument behind the price-signal pillar.
  • Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, 1962. Economic freedom as a precondition of political freedom.

Comparative frameworks

  • Peter Hall and David Soskice, editors, Varieties of Capitalism, 2001. The liberal versus coordinated market economy distinction; the scholarly backbone of bands L1 and L2.
  • Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw, The Commanding Heights, 1998. The twentieth-century tug of war between state and market, told as narrative history.
  • Branko Milanovic, Capitalism, Alone, 2019. The framing that liberal and political capitalism are now the only two systems standing; directly relevant to the China page.

China

  • Isabella Weber, How China Escaped Shock Therapy, 2021. The reform-era pricing debates; why China kept the cage.
  • Margaret Pearson, Meg Rithmire, and Kellee Tsai, Party-State Capitalism in China, 2021 and subsequent papers. Source for the party-state capitalism classification on china.html.
  • Arthur Kroeber, China's Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know, second edition, 2020 (Oxford University Press). The standard one-volume orientation; source for SOE and land finance mechanics. Second edition published September 2020; first edition 2016.
  • World Bank poverty data for China. Source for the roughly 800 million figure on china.html.
  • China National Bureau of Statistics, 2025 annual data, via Caixin Global, January 2026. Source for the 2025 property downturn, the population decline, and the youth unemployment figures on china.html.
  • International Monetary Fund, China Article IV, via OMFIF, 2025. Source for the augmented-debt and local-government-debt shares on china.html.
  • State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), via Caixin Global, 2026. Source for the count of 100 central state-owned enterprises on china.html.
  • China Briefing (Dezan Shira and Associates), 15th Five-Year Plan recommendations, 2025. Source for the technological self-reliance emphasis of the 15th Five-Year Plan on china.html.

Indices and data

  • Heritage Foundation, 2026 Index of Economic Freedom. Source for all 2026 scores and ranks used on the site: Singapore 84.4, Switzerland 83.7, Ireland 83.3, Australia 80.1, Taiwan 79.8, United States 72.8 and 22nd, China 48.3, Russia 50.3, and the four-country Free tier.
  • Fraser Institute, Economic Freedom of the World, 2025 Annual Report (data year 2023). The second standard index, for cross-checking. Top five: Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Switzerland, and the United States.
  • Our World in Data, extreme poverty series, building on Bourguignon and Morrisson. Source for the hero stat on what-is-capitalism.html and the homepage.
  • Housing and Development Board (HDB), Annual Report 2024/2025 Key Statistics, Singapore. Source for the 76 percent HDB housing figure on countries.html.
  • Korea Herald (Yonhap), Samsung Electronics overseas revenue, 2019. Source for the Samsung share of South Korean exports on countries.html.

United States institutions

  • US Department of the Treasury, Monthly Treasury Statement, final fiscal year 2024. Source for the federal spending composition on america.html: social insurance plus health about 48 percent of outlays, Social Security the single largest function at 21.6 percent. Corroborated by the Congressional Budget Office Monthly Budget Review.
  • Bureau of Economic Analysis and International Monetary Fund, 2024, via FRED. Source for total government spending of roughly 36 percent of GDP on america.html.
  • Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey, certification and licensing data, 2024 annual averages. Source for the 21.6 percent occupational licensing figure and the license versus certification definition on america.html.
  • Urban Institute, Housing Finance At A Glance, December 2025. Source for the roughly 63 percent federally backed mortgage share on america.html.
  • US Supreme Court tariff ruling, February 2026, via the Tax Foundation. Source for the tariff status on america.html: the 2025 emergency-powers tariffs struck down, with Section 232 and Section 301 tariffs remaining.
  • Federal Reserve History, federalreservehistory.org. Source for the 1913, 1933, 1971, and 2008 monetary entries.

Denmark statement

  • Lars Lokke Rasmussen, "Nordic Solutions and Challenges: A Danish Perspective," Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics, October 2015. Source for the Denmark-is-a-market-economy statement on the spectrum and countries pages. Reported contemporaneously by The Local Denmark (1 November 2015) and the Harvard Crimson (30 October 2015): "Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy."