Prologue, p. 16
Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008)
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23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism
Ha-Joon Chang
Ha-Joon Chang:
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Famous Ha-Joon Chang Quotes
Source: 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism
Source: 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism
“People 'over-produce' pollution because they are not paying for the costs of dealing with it.”
Source: 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism
“We are not smart enough to leave things to the market.”
Thing 16
23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism (2010)
Source: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008), Ch. 3, More trade, fewer ideologies, p. 82
Ha-Joon Chang Quotes about homeland
Source: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008), Ch. 6: 'Windows 98 in 1997; Is it wrong to 'borrow' ideas?', John Law and the first technological arms race, p. 127
Source: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008), Ch. 6, The lawyers get involved, p. 134
"What is Wrong with the 'Official History of Capitalism'?", in Edward Fullbrook (ed.), A Guide to What's Wrong with Economics (2004), p. 280
Source: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008), Ch. 8: 'Zaire vs Indonesia, Should we turn our backs on corrupt and undemocratic countries?', Prosperity and honesty, p. 166
"Kicking Away the Ladder" http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue15/Chang15.htm, post-autistic economics review, issue no. 15, 1 September 2002, article 3
Prologue, p. 18
Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008)
Ha-Joon Chang Quotes
Source: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008), Ch. 3: 'My six-year-old son should get a job; Is free trade always the answer?', p. 65
Context: I have a six-year-old son. His name is Jin-Gyu. He lives off me, yet he is quite capable of making a living. I pay for his lodging, food, education and health care. But millions of children of his age already have jobs. Daniel Defoe, in the 18th century, thought that children could earn a living from the age of four.
Moreover, working might do Jin-Gyu's character a world of good. Right now he lives in an economic bubble with no sense of the value of money. He has zero appreciation of the efforts his mother and I make on his behalf, subsidizing his idle existence and cocooning him from harsh reality. He is over-protected and needs to be exposed to competition, so that he can become a more productive person. Thinking about it, the more competition he is exposed to and the sooner this is done, the better it will be for his future development. It will whip him into a mentality that is ready for hard work. I should make him quit school and get a job. Perhaps I could move to a country where child labour is still tolerated, if not legal, to give him more choice in employment.
“Trade is simply too important for economic development to be left to free trade economists.”
Source: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008), Ch. 3, More trade, fewer ideologies, p. 83
Context: The importance of international trade for economic development cannot be overemphasized. But free trade is not the best path to economic development. Trade helps economic development only when the country employs a mixture of protection and open trade, constantly adjusting it according to its changing needs and capabilities. Trade is simply too important for economic development to be left to free trade economists.
Source: Economics: The User's Guide (2014), Ch. 4: "Let a hundred flowers bloom: How to 'do' economics"
Context: ECONOMICS COCKTAILS. Ingredients: Austrian, Behaviouralist, Classical, Developmentalist, Institutionalist, Keynesian, Marxist, Neoclassical and Schumpeterian. [... ] Health warning: On no account drink only one ingredient – liable to lead to tunnel vision, arrogance and possibly brain death.
Source: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008), Ch. 6, The tyranny of interlocking patents, p. 128
Context: The days are over when technology can be advanced in laboratories by individual scientists alone. Now you need an army of lawyers to negotiate the hazardous terrain of interlocking patents. Unless we find a solution to the problem of interlocking patents, the patent system may actually impede the very innovation it was designed to encourage.
Source: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008), Ch. 2, Learning the right lessons from history, p. 61
Context: Rich countries have 'kicked away the ladder' by forcing free-market, free-trade policies on poor countries. Already established countries do not want more competitors emerging through the nationalistic policies they themselves successfully used in the past.
“Keynesianism for the rich countries and monetarism for the poor”
Source: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008), Ch. 7, Keynesianism for the rich, monetarism for the poor, p. 158
Context: Gore Vidal, the American writer, once described the American economic system as 'free enterprise for the poor and socialism for the rich'. Macroeconomic policy on the global scale is a bit like that. It is Keynesianism for the rich countries and monetarism for the poor.
“If they want to leave poverty behind, they have to defy the market”
Source: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008), Ch. 9, Defying the market, p. 210
Context: Markets have a strong tendency to reinforce the status quo. The free market dictates that countries stick to what they are already good at. Stated bluntly, this means that poor countries are supposed to continue with their current engagement in low-productivity activities. But their engagement in those activities is exactly what makes them poor. If they want to leave poverty behind, they have to defy the market and do the more difficult things that bring them higher incomes—there are no two ways about it.
Prologue, p. 17
Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008)
Context: Britain and the US are not the homes of free trade; in fact, for a long time they were the most protectionist countries in the world. Not all countries have succeeded through protection and subsidies, but few have done so without them. For developing countries, free trade has a rarely been a matter of choice; it was often an imposition from outside, sometimes even through military power. Most of them did very poorly under free trade; they did much better when they used protection and subsidies. The best-performing economies have been those that opened up their economies selectively and gradually. Neo-liberal free-trade free-market policy claims to sacrifice equity for growth, but in fact it achieves neither; growth has slowed down in the past two and a half decades when markets were freed and borders opened.
Source: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008), Ch. 8, Democracy and the free market, p. 172
Context: Unlike what neo-liberals say, market and democracy clash at a fundamental level. Democracy runs on the principle of 'one man (one person), one vote'. The market runs on the principle of 'one dollar, one vote'. Naturally, the former gives equal weight to each person, regardless of the money she/he has. The latter give greater weight to richer people. Therefore, democratic decisions usually subvert the logic of market.
Source: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008), Ch. 9, Tilting the playing field, p. 219
“Corruption exists because there is too much, not too little, market.”
Prologue, p. 18
Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008)
Variant: Corruption often exists because there are too many market forces, not too few.
"Watch out, George Osborne: Smith, Marx and even the IMF are after you" http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/08/osborne-marx-imf-austerity-democracy, The Guardian, 8 May 2013.
Prologue, p. 15
Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008)
“Assume the worst about people and you get the worst.”
Thing 5
23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism (2010)
Source: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008), Ch. 5, Black cat, white cat, p. 121
“Democracy is acceptable to neo-liberals only in so far as it does not contradict the free market.”
Source: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008), Ch. 8, Democracy and the free market, p. 176
“Financial markets need to become less, not more, efficient.”
Thing 22
23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism (2010)
“95% of Economics is common sense deliberately made complicated.”
Lecture http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whVf5tuVbus at the RSA about his book 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism, September 2010.
Source: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008), Ch. 7, There is inflation and there is inflation, p. 150
“Culture changes with economic development.”
Source: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008), Ch. 9: 'Lazy Japanese and thieving Germans; Are some cultures incapable of economic development?', Lazy Japanese and thieving Germans, p. 196
“Low inflation and government prudence may be harmful for economic development.”
Prologue, p. 18
Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008)
Source: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008), Ch. 3, Poor theory, poor results, p. 73
“History is on the side of the regulators.”
Source: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008), Ch. 4: 'The Finn and the elephant; Should we regulate foreign investment?', ‘More dangerous than military power’, p. 96
“Manufacturing is the most important…route to prosperity.”
Source: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008), Ch. 9, Why manufacturing matters, p. 215
Source: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008), Ch. 8, Democracy and the free market, p. 174
“The foundation of economic development is the acquisition of more productive knowledge.”
Source: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008), Ch. 6, Harsh rules and developing countries, p. 142
“Making rich people richer doesn't make the rest of us richer.”
Thing 13
23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism (2010)
Source: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008), Ch. 5: 'Man exploits man; Private enterprise good, public enterprise bad?', The pitfalls of privatization, p. 116
Source: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008), Ch. 2: 'The double life of Daniel Defoe; How did the rich countries become rich?', The double life of the British economy, p. 47
"Austerity has never worked" http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/04/austerity-policy-eurozone-crisis, The Guardian, 4 June 2012.
"The root of Europe's riots" http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/28/europe-riots-root-imf-austerity, The Guardian, 28 September 2012.
“Are you still convinced that inflation is incompatible with economic success?”
Source: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008), Ch. 7: 'Mission impossible?; Can financial prudence go too far?', There is inflation and there is inflation, p. 149
Context: Inflation is bad for growth—this has become one of the most widely accepted economic nostrums of our age. But see how you feel about it after digesting the following piece of information.
During the 1960s and the 1970s, Brazil's average inflation rate was 42% a year. Despite this, Brazil was one of the fastest growing economies in the world for those two decades—its per capita income grew at 4.5% a year during this period. In contrast, between 1996 and 2005, during which time Brazil embraced the neo-liberal orthodoxy, especially in relation to macroeconomic policy, its inflation rate averaged a much lower 7.1% a year. But during this period, per capita income in Brazil grew at only 1.3% a year.
If you are not entirely persuaded by the Brazilian case—understandable, given that hyperinflation went side by side with low growth in the 1980s and the early 1990s—how about this? During its 'miracle' years, when its economy was growing at 7% a year in per capita terms, Korea had inflation rates close to 20%-17.4% in the 1960s and 19.8% in the 1970s. These were rates higher than those found in several Latin American countries... Are you still convinced that inflation is incompatible with economic success?
