This decade’s end almost passed me by – so immersed I have been in writing projects. That would have been a shame. The period of the Noughties marks precisely the period following my departure from the world of financial services when, after some false starts, I set about writing full time about the place of business in society.

It was a decade that began with the dotcom boom and bust, the Enron and WorldCom scandals, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s investigation of deep-rooted conflicts of interest on Wall Street and the investment houses, the rise and stagnation of the World Social Forum, the crystallization of mainstream concern about man-made climate change, and the high stakes game of financial pass-the-parcel-bomb that precipitated the global financial crisis, the Great Recession and with it placed over 100 million people around the world into a state of severe poverty and hunger.

I would like to share with readers of this blog the best of the books  I have read about these crises of capitalism and those which signpost the way forward. In this post I will list my favourite ten books of the Noughties that have drawn attention to what is deeply wrong with the particular incarnation of capitalism that has taken root over the last 30 or so years. In the next post I will list the ten books published during the decade that I feel help best to lay the foundations of a new approach to business management that is genuinely sustainable.

So, first to the selection covering the crisis of capitalism.

1. No Logo: No Space, No Choice, No Jobs by Naomi Klein

For younger generations awareness of the cultural problems stemming from contemporary capitalism began with this book, and for earlier generations it updated older concerns by addressing the impact of economic globalization.

2. Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System---and Themselves by Andrew Ross Sorkin

This is the most comprehensive account yet produced on how the current financial crisis happened.

3.  The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power by Joel Bakan

A smart analysis of what is wrong with the corporate form using the even smarter metaphor of psychopathy to bring out what those flaws mean for the real world. There is also a great documentary based on the book.

4.  Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life by Robert B. Reich

Reich - Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration - does a solid job of describing precisely how big business is undermining democracy. He is also dismissive of the claim made by many corporate responsibility consultants that the profit motive can drive responsibility, in other words that it costs you nothing to act responsibly with due regard to the impacts of your actions.

5. Globalization and Its Discontents by Joseph E. Stiglitz

This is the book that brought the academically lauded economist Stiglitz to a much broader audience. He cuts through the free market rhetoric to identify how the institutions of global capitalism undermine its promise of higher standards of living for all, everywhere.

6. Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich

Ehrenreich went undercover to research this account of how hard it is for working class Americans to get by or to improve their situation. US capitalism does not offer opportunity to everyone.

7.  The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein

Of course business always knows how to turn a crisis into opportunity, but what happens when they gather sufficient power to influence the shape of crises as they emerge? Klein's detailed analysis of this disturbing new trend earns her a second book on the list.

8. The Divine Right of Capital: Dethroning the Corporate Aristocracy by Marjorie Kelly

This book by the founder of Business Ethics magazine represents one of the earlier and better analyses of how the focus on profit maximization costs society dear. She then sets out a vision of how the course of business can be reset.

9. The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies by Robert Edwards Lane

Much of the defence of contemporary capitalism rests on the argument that for all its undoubted flaws we are much better off for it. This book comprehensively rebuts that complacency by reviewing what has happened to happiness within western market economies.

10. The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron by Peter Elkind

While Wall Street heads back to business as usual, insisting that the financial crisis cannot be repeated, this wonderful report on the fall of Enron reminds us (and I hope honest politicians) why good regulation is needed.