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Ha-Joon Chang
90 quotes
“Almost all of today's rich countries used protection and subsidies to develop their industries. Interestingly, Britain and the USA, the two countries that are supposed to have reached the summit of the world economy through their free-market, free-trade policy, are actually the ones that had most aggressively used protection and subsidies.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) first seen 2002 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Kicking Away the Ladder", post-autistic economics review, issue no. 15 (1 September 2002) article 3
“Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the historical fact is that the rich countries did not develop on the basis of the policies and the institutions that they now recommend to, and often force upon, the developing countries. Unfortunately, this fact is little known these days because the 'official historians' of capitalism have been very successful in re-writing its history.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: What is Wrong with the 'Official History of Capitalism'?", in Edward Fullbrook (ed.), A Guide to What's Wrong with Economics (2004), p. 280
“95% of Economics is common sense deliberately made complicated.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Lecture at the RSA about his book 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism (September 2010).
“It's not just about the current economic environment. History shows that slashing budgets always leads to recession.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Austerity has never worked", The Guardian (4 June 2012).
“The danger is not only that these austerity measures are killing the European economies but also that they threaten the very legitimacy of European democracies – not just directly by threatening the livelihoods of so many people and pushing the economy into a downward spiral, but also indirectly by undermining the legitimacy of the through this backdoor rewriting of the social contract.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The root of Europe's riots", The Guardian (28 September 2012).
“Being told by the IMF to go easy on austerity is like being told by the to be more tolerant of heretics.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Watch out, George Osborne: Smith, Marx and even the IMF are after you", The Guardian (8 May 2013).
“The Korean economic miracle was the result of a clever and pragmatic mixture of market incentives and state direction.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The has been so totally re-written that many people in the rich world do not perceive the historical s involved in recommending free trade and free market to developing countries.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Low inflation and government prudence may be harmful for .”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Corruption exists because there is too much, not too little, market.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Countries are poor not because their people are lazy; their people are 'lazy' because they are poor.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Producers in developing countries entering new industries need a period of (partial) insulation from international competition (through protection, subsidies and other measures) before they can build up their capabilities to compete with superior foreign producers. Of course, when the infant producers 'grow up' and are able to compete with the more advanced producers, the insulation should go. But this has to be done gradually. If they are exposed to too much international competition too soon, they are bound to disappear.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As South Korea shows, active participation in international trade does not require free trade. Indeed, had South Korea pursued free trade and not promoted infant industries, it would not have become a major trading nation. It would still be exporting raw materials (e.g., tungsten ore, fish, seaweed) or low-technology, low-price products (e.g., textiles, garments, wigs made with human hair) that used to be its main export items in the 1960s.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The importance of international trade for 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.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“History is on the side of the regulators.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All the alleged key causes of SOE [State-Owned Enterprise] inefficiency—the principal–agent problem, the and the soft budget constraint—are, while real, not unique to state-owned enterprises. Large private-sector firms with dispersed ownership also suffer from the principal-agent problem and the free-rider problem. So, in these two areas, forms of ownership do matter, but the critical divide is not between state and private ownership—it is between concentrated and dispersed ownerships.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is no hard and fast rule as to what makes a successful state-owned enterprise. Therefore, when it comes to SOE management, we need a pragmatic attitude in the spirit of the famous remark by China’s former leader Deng Xiao-ping: 'it does not matter whether the cat is white or black as long as it catches mice.'”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The historical picture is clear. ing was not invented in modern Asia. When they were backward themselves in terms of knowledge, all of today's rich countries blithely violated other people's patents, s and copyrights. The Swiss 'borrowed' German chemical inventions, while the Germans 'borrowed' English trademarks and the 'borrowed' British copyrighted materials—all without paying what would today be considered 'just' compensation.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The foundation of economic development is the acquisition of more productive knowledge.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is a big logical jump between acknowledging the destructive nature of and arguing that the lower the rate of inflation, the better.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“History shows that, at earlier stages of economic development, corruption is difficult to control. The fact that today no country that is very poor is very clean suggests that a country has to rise above absolute poverty before it can significantly reduce in the system. When people are poor, it is easy to buy their dignity—starving people find it difficult not to sell their votes for a bag of flour, while under-paid civil servants will often fail to resist the temptation to take a bribe. But it is not just a matter of personal dignity. There are also more structural causes.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Corruption often exists because there are too many market forces, not too few.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Democracy and markets are both fundamental building blocks for a decent society. But they clash at a fundamental level. We need to balance them.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Democracy is acceptable to neo-liberals only in so far as it does not contradict the free market.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Culture changes with .”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Manufacturing is the most important...route to prosperity.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Global economic competition is a game of unequal players … Consequently, it is only fair that we 'tilt the playing field' in favour of the weaker countries. In practice, this means allowing them to protect and subsidize their producers more vigorously and to put stricter regulations on foreign investment. These countries should also be allowed to protect intellectual property rights less stringently so that they can more actively 'borrow' ideas from more advanced countries.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Assume the worst about people and you get the worst.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Making rich people richer doesn't make the rest of us richer.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We are not smart enough to leave things to the market.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Financial markets need to become less, not more, efficient.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[J]argons that facilitate communication within the profession makes its communication with outsiders more difficult. ...[A]ll technical professions have an incentive to make themselves look more complicated... so they can justify the high fees... for their services.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[E]conomics can never be a science in the sense that physics or chemistry is. There are many different types of economic theory, each emphasizing different aspects of a complex reality, making different moral and political value judgments and drawing different conclusions. ...[E]conomic theories constantly fail to predict real-world developments... not least because human beings have... free will, unlike chemical molecules or [other] physical objects.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[E]very responsible citizen needs to learn some economics... such... that one becomes aware of the different types of... arguments... and... judge which... makes most sense in a given... circumstance... in light of... moral values and political goals...”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I try to reveal the assumptions underlying... theories so... readers can make... judgements about their realism and plausibility.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I... tell... how numbers in economics are defined and put together... not as... objective as... weight or... temperature...”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I try to explain... how to think, rather than what to think.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[M]ost economists were caught completely by surprise by the 2008 global financial crisis. ...[T]hey have not been able to come up with solutions to the ongoing aftermaths ...[E]conomics seems to suffer from a serious case of megalomania—how can a subject that cannot... explain its own area... claim to explain (almost) everything?”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The standard Neoclassical definition of economics... is... by Lionel Robbins... 'the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses'... [is] by... theoretical approach rather than... subject matter... a study of rational choice... deliberate, systematic ... The subject of the calculation can be anything...”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When Becker titled... The Economic Approach to Human Behaviour, he was... declaring... economics is about everything.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Money is a symbol of what others in your society owe you, or your claim on particular amounts of the society's resources. How money and other financial claims... are created, sold and bought is... . ...[C]laims ...a lot of economics is (or should be) about those.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[T]o understand jobs... we need to know about skills, technological innovation and . ...Wages and working conditions are... affected by 'political' decisions... the boundary between economics and politics is blurry...”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[T]he realm of production... has been... neglected since the Neoclassical school... emphasis on exchange and consumption, became dominant in the 1960s. ...[P]roduction is a lot more than combining ...abstract quanta called labour and capital ...how the is physically organized, how to control the workers or deal with trade unions, how to... improve the technologies used through research. ...[P]roduction is the ultimate foundation of any economy. ...[Its] changes ...usually have been the most powerful sources of social change.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[I]n the United States... official unemployment is at... 15-16% but if you count the... number of people who have become newly unemployed, counted by... unemployment insurance claimants, basically American unemployment rate is nearly 30%. ...During the Great Depression the only other economic crisis comparable in scale... the highest unemployment rate in the US was in 1933... at 25%.”
Ha-Joon Chang (born 1963) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source