Exposes the attempts by developed countries to 'kick away the ladder' from developing countries trying to join the economic elite.
Lucid, deeply informed, and enlivened with striking illustrations. -Noam Chomsky
One economist has called Ha-Joon Chang the most exciting thinker our profession has turned out in the past fifteen years. With Bad Samaritans, this provocative scholar bursts into the debate on globalization and economic justice. Using irreverent wit, an engagingly personal style, and a battery of examples, Chang blasts holes in the World Is Flat orthodoxy of Thomas Friedman and other liberal economists who argue that only unfettered capitalism and wide-open international trade can lift struggling nations out of poverty. On the contrary, Chang shows, today's economic superpowers-from the U.S. to Britain to his native Korea-all attained prosperity by shameless protectionism and government intervention in industry. We have conveniently forgotten this fact, telling ourselves a fairy tale about the magic of free trade and-via our proxies such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organization-ramming policies that suit ourselves down the throat of the developing world. Unlike typical economists who construct models of how the marketplace should work, Chang examines the past: what has actually happened. His pungently contrarian history demolishes one pillar after another of free-market mythology. We treat patents and copyrights as sacrosanct-but developed our own industries by studiously copying others' technologies. We insist that centrally planned economies stifle growth-but many developing countries had higher GDP growth before they were pressured into deregulating their economies. Both justice and common sense, Chang argues, demand that we reevaluate the policies we force on nations that are struggling to follow in our footsteps.In his bestselling 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism, Cambridge economist Ha-Joon Chang brilliantly debunked many of the predominant myths of neoclassical economics. Now, in an entertaining and accessible primer, he explains how the global economy actually works-in real-world terms. Writing with irreverent wit, a deep knowledge of history, and a disregard for conventional economic pieties, Chang offers insights that will never be found in the textbooks.
Unlike many economists, who present only one view of their discipline, Chang introduces a wide range of economic theories, from classical to Keynesian, revealing how each has its strengths and weaknesses, and why there is no one way to explain economic behavior. Instead, by ignoring the received wisdom and exposing the myriad forces that shape our financial world, Chang gives us the tools we need to understand our increasingly global and interconnected world often driven by economics. From the future of the Euro, inequality in China, or the condition of the American manufacturing industry here in the United States-Economics: The User's Guide is a concise and expertly crafted guide to economic fundamentals that offers a clear and accurate picture of the global economy and how and why it affects our daily lives.INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
For anyone who wants to understand capitalism not as economists or politicians have pictured it but as it actually operates, this book will be invaluable.-Observer (UK) If you've wondered how we did not see the economic collapse coming, Ha-Joon Chang knows the answer: We didn't ask what they didn't tell us about capitalism. This is a lighthearted book with a serious purpose: to question the assumptions behind the dogma and sheer hype that the dominant school of neoliberal economists-the apostles of the freemarket-have spun since the Age of Reagan. Chang, the author of the international bestseller Bad Samaritans, is one of the world's most respected economists, a voice of sanity-and wit-in the tradition of John Kenneth Galbraith and Joseph Stiglitz. 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism equips readers with an understanding of how global capitalism works-and doesn't. In his final chapter, How to Rebuild the World, Chang offers a vision of how we can shape capitalism to humane ends, instead of becoming slaves of the market.From the internationally bestselling author and prizewinning economist--a highly original guide to the global economy.
In his bestselling 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism, Cambridge economist Ha-Joon Chang brilliantly debunked many of the predominant myths of neoclassical economics. Now, in an entertaining and accessible primer, he explains how the global economy actually works--in real-world terms. Writing with irreverent wit, a deep knowledge of history, and a disregard for conventional economic pieties, Chang offers insights that will never be found in the textbooks. Unlike many economists, who present only one view of their discipline, Chang introduces a wide range of economic theories, from classical to Keynesian, revealing how each has its strengths and weaknesses, and why there is no one way to explain economic behavior. Instead, by ignoring the received wisdom and exposing the myriad forces that shape our financial world, Chang gives us the tools we need to understand our increasingly global and interconnected world often driven by economics. From the future of the Euro, inequality in China, or the condition of the American manufacturing industry here in the United States--Economics: The User's Guide is a concise and expertly crafted guide to economic fundamentals that offers a clear and accurate picture of the global economy and how and why it affects our daily lives.No one has challenged the policies of the international financial community as profoundly as Joseph Stiglitz, the former Chief Economist of the World Bank. In controversial speeches made around the world, Stiglitz has undone the conventional wisdom that dominated policy-making at the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the US Treasury Department.
For the first time, Stiglitz's nine most revealing speeches have been gathered together, covering such topics as the failure of shock therapy and transition economics, the limits of capital market liberalization, the myopia of the Washington consensus, the role of knowledge in markets, the process of developing market institutions and the primacy of openness and worker participation. Along with Dr Ha-Joon Chang's insightful commentary, they form the most powerful representation of Stiglitz's thinking to be found anywhere. A landmark collection of material for economists everywhere.
The role of the state in the economy has always been a controversial issue in public debate, but it has become more so in the last quarter of a century with the rise of neoliberal thinking that preaches the virtues of unregulated markets and recommends de-regulation, opening-up, and privatisation.
This push for a minimal, pro-business state, especially in developing countries, has been further intensified with both the rise of globalisation and the many radical neoliberal 'reforms' implemented, often under pressure from multilateral agencies (such as the IMF, the World Bank, and the WTO). In this book, the author highlights the failure of neoliberalism, especially in developing countries, or what he terms 'the intellectual bankruptcy of neoliberalism', which, he believes, 'stems ultimately from its failure to base its discourse on a balanced and sophisticated theory of the inter-relationship between the market, the state, and other institutions'. He also tries to construct a credible alternative theoretical framework to neoliberalism, informed by a balanced understanding of empirical evidence. The issues covered concern a rather wide range of domestic and international policy issues - including trade policy, privatisation, transnational corporations, and intellectual property rights.There is no alternative to neoliberal economics - or so it appeared when Reclaiming Development was published in 2004. Many of the same driving assumptions - monetarism and globalization - remain within the international development policy establishment. Ha-Joon Chang and Ilene Grabel confront this neoliberal development model head-on by combining devastating economic critique with an array of innovative policies and an in-depth analysis of the experiences of leading Western and East Asian economies. Still, much has changed since 2004 - the relative success of some developing countries in weathering the global financial crisis has exposed the latent contradictions of the neoliberal model. The resulting situation of increasingly open policy innovation in the global South means that Reclaiming Development is even more relevant today than
This important collection tackles the failure of neoliberal reform to generate long-term growth and reduce poverty in many developing and transition economies. As dramatically demonstrated in the collapse of the WTO's Seattle talks, there is increasing dissatisfaction, in both developing and developed countries, with the emerging neoliberal global economic order. The resignations of Joseph Stiglitz and Ravi Kanbur from the World Bank emphasize that this disillusionment with the orthodoxy now exists at the very heart of the establishment. Yet the increasing demand for an alternative to this orthodoxy is not being met. Over the last few decades, the older generation of development economists have been edged out of most major universities, particularly in the USA. The situation in most developing countries is even worse: although there is more demand for alternatives to orthodox development economics, these countries have even less capability to generate such alternatives. 'Rethinking Development Economics' is intended to fill this gap, addressing key issues in development economics, ranging from macroeconomics, finance and governance to trade, industry, agriculture and poverty. Bringing together some of the foremost names in the field, this comprehensive and timely collection constitutes a critical staging post in the future of development economics.
Today East Asia is the richest part of the world outside the old industrial centres of Western Europe and North America. Despite political authoritarianism, human rights violations, corruption, repression of labour unions, gender discrimination and mistreatment of ethnic minorities, the citizens of the East Asian economies have experienced improvements in income and general well-being unparalleled in human history.
In this book, Ha-Joon Chang provides a fresh analysis of this spectacular growth. He considers East Asian economies' unorthodox methods, and their rejection of 'best practice' and so-called Washington Consensus policies. East Asia, he claims, can teach us much about the whole process of economic development. Full of new facts and policy suggestions, this is a lively and unconventional introduction to a global phenomenon.No one has challenged the policies of the international financial community as profoundly as Joseph Stiglitz, the former Chief Economist of the World Bank. In controversial speeches made around the world, Stiglitz has undone the conventional wisdom that dominated policy-making at the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the US Treasury Department.
For the first time, Stiglitz's nine most revealing speeches have been gathered together, covering such topics as the failure of shock therapy and transition economics, the limits of capital market liberalization, the myopia of the Washington consensus, the role of knowledge in markets, the process of developing market institutions and the primacy of openness and worker participation. Along with Dr Ha-Joon Chang's insightful commentary, they form the most powerful representation of Stiglitz's thinking to be found anywhere. A landmark collection of material for economists everywhere.
This book critically re-examines the currently dominant paradigm of agricultural development policy from historical and comparative perspectives. Examining the experiences of 11 developed countries in their earlier stages of development and the experiences of 10 developing and transition economies in the last half a century, the book offers an in-depth discussion on a range of public policies for agriculture, some currently in use and others forgotten in the mist of history.
After presenting the overarching theoretical framework and a synthesis of findings over the 21 countries examined, the book presents six detailed case studies of agricultural policy in the last half a century in two Latin American countries (Chile and Mexico), two African countries (Ethiopia and Ghana), and two Asian countries (India and Vietnam). Each chapter examines a wide range of policies, including land policy (land tenure reform and land quality improvement), knowledge policy (research, extension, education, and information), credit policy (specialized banks and agricultural credit co-operatives), physical inputs policy (irrigation, transport, electricity, and divisible inputs such as fertilizers, seeds, and farm machinery), policies intended to increase farm income stability (price stabilization measures, insurances, and trade protection), and policies intended to improve agricultural marketing and processing.
Through its historical and comparative approaches, the book frees our policy imagination by showing that the range of policies and institutions that have produced positive outcomes for agricultural development has been much wider than any particular ideological position - be it the pre-1980s statist one or the pro-market NCW - would admit. It also shows that the willingness to experiment with new policies and institutions, and the willingness to learn from other countries' successes and improve upon their solutions, were important in all agricultural success stories.
This book critically re-examines a wide range of policy issues in agriculture, including land, knowledge, credit and physical inputs policy, presenting six detailed case studies from Latin America, Africa and Asia with a detailed synthesis from the editor, Ha-Joon Chang.