Ha-Joon Chang quotes - page 2

People 'over-produce' pollution because they are not paying for the costs of dealing with it. (Ha-Joon Chang)
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. View quote
Ha-Joon Chang
Almost all of today's rich countries used tariff 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. View quote
Ha-Joon Chang
The best way to boost the economy is to redistribute wealth downward, as poorer people tend to spend a higher proportion of their income. View quote
Ha-Joon Chang
Every market has some rules and boundaries that restrict freedom of choice. A market looks free only because we so unconditionally accept its underlying restrictions that we fail to see them. View quote
Ha-Joon Chang
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 venality 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. View quote
Ha-Joon Chang
As water flows from high to low, knowledge has always flowed from where there is more to where there is less. Those countries that are better at absorbing the knowledge inflow have been more successful in catching up with the more economically advanced nations. On the other side of the fence, those advanced nations that are good at controlling the outflow of core technologies have retained their technological leadership for longer. The technological 'arms race', between backward countries trying to acquire advanced foreign knowledge and the advanced countries trying to prevent its outflow has always been at the heart of the game of economic development. View quote
Ha-Joon Chang
Once you realize that trickle-down economics does not work, you will see the excessive tax cuts for the rich as what they are -- a simple upward redistribution of income, rather than a way to make all of us richer, as we were told. View quote
Ha-Joon Chang
Being told by the IMF to go easy on austerity is like being told by the Spanish Inquisition to be more tolerant of heretics. View quote
Ha-Joon Chang
The historical picture is clear. Counterfeiting 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, trademarks and copyrights. The Swiss 'borrowed' German chemical inventions, while the Germans 'borrowed' English trademarks and the Americans 'borrowed' British copyrighted materials-all without paying what would today be considered 'just' compensation. View quote
Ha-Joon Chang
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)
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. View quote
Ha-Joon Chang
Corruption often exists because there are too many market forces, not too few. View quote
Ha-Joon Chang
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. View quote
Ha-Joon Chang
The invention of the printing press was one of the most important events in human history. View quote
Ha-Joon Chang
By liberating women from household work and helping to abolish professions such as domestic service, the washing machine and other household goods completely revolutionised the structure of society. View quote
Ha-Joon Chang
Democracy, despite its limitations, is in the end the only way to ensure that policies do not simply benefit the privileged few. View quote
Ha-Joon Chang
The feeling of insecurity is inimical to our sense of wellbeing, as it causes anxiety and stress, which harms our physical and mental health. It is no surprise then that, according to some surveys, workers across the world value job security more highly than wages. View quote
Ha-Joon Chang
He is over-protected and needs to be exposed to competition, so that he can become a more productive person. View quote
Ha-Joon Chang
Trade is simply too important for economic development to be left to free trade economists. View quote
Ha-Joon Chang
Are you still convinced that inflation is incompatible with economic success? (Ha-Joon Chang)
Health warning: On no account drink only one ingredient – liable to lead to tunnel vision, arrogance and possibly brain death. View quote
Ha-Joon Chang
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. View quote
Ha-Joon Chang
Rich countries have 'kicked away the ladder' by forcing free-market, free-trade policies on poor countries. View quote
Ha-Joon Chang
Keynesianism for the rich countries and monetarism for the poor. View quote
Ha-Joon Chang