Chang Ha-Joon

Quotes

1. 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.

   p. 166

2. 

   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.

   p. 83

3. 

   I try to reveal the assumptions underlying... theories so... readers can make... judgements about their realism and plausibility.

4. 

   I try to explain... how to think, rather than what to think.

5. 

   The foundation of economic development is the acquisition of more productive knowledge.

   p. 142

6. 

   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.

   p. 134

7. 

   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.

   p. 82

8. 

   Corruption exists because there is too much, not too little, market.

   p. 18

9. 

   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.

   p. 172

10. 

    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.

    p. 17

11. 

    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.'

    p. 121

12. 

    Low inflation and government prudence may be harmful for .

    p. 18