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 '', 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 .
South Korean economist
(Hangul: 장하준; hanja: 張夏准; born 7 October 1963) is a South Korean institutional economist specialising in . Currently a reader in the Political Economy of Development at the University of Cambridge, Chang is the author of several widely discussed policy books, most notably Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective (2002). In 2013 Prospect magazine ranked Chang as one of the top 20 World Thinkers.
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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.
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...
[N]ow we know that the whole community is bound in common destiny... It always has been, but... we now feel it more accurately, and there will be demands... for... greater respect, even for marginalized groups [etc.]... That will create further pressure towards... more emphasis on universal human rights [etc]... However, whether that actually gets translated into laws and international conventions... [I]t's going to be a long struggle, but... to be... forthright... humanitarian progresses have seen many setbacks recently... Trump, Bolsanero, Brexit [etc.]... but... 200 years ago a lot of people... thought it was perfectly okay to buy and sell people... 100 years ago Britain and many other countries put women in prison for asking to vote, and only 78 years ago the founding fathers of today's developing nations, Nkrumah, Kenyatta... these people were all hunted down by the British and the French as terrorists, 40 years ago Margaret Thatcher famously said that anyone who thinks there will be a black majority to rule in South Africa ever, is living in a cloud cuckoo land... but all of these things were achieved, not by luck, but because people organized and fought for them, and... in the long run this crisis might be an occasion for those movements to be more... galvanized... become more international... and have greater chance at success.
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.
<nowiki>[</nowiki>Capitalism...] [I]t's not how it will change, but how we have to change it... because given the existing , and power, unless the ordinary citizens and the progressive people get organized and press the governments, they are not going to change things automatically. ...We've seen that after the 2008 financial crisis... so for about... 9 months they embraced Keynes... and then the bailed out banks [etc]... and they were going to reform the financial system... After 2 years it was... back to the old game... and then things got even worse because... in some countries like the US and the UK... the right-wing governments were elected, and then... in the US... Donald Trump... invalidated many of the reforms that were introduced to the financial market, after Obama, after the crisis... [I]f we don't keep fighting it's not going to change... [T]here are new opportunities and new solidarities emerging... new ways of thinking, but... how they all will gel together and translate into collective action, public policies, institutional changes, that's... up to us. Everyone.
[W]e have to work to make it what we want. It's not going to automatically happen, but... in an ideal world we want greater social protection, greater recognition of the importance of the care economy... restructuring of our production and supply networks into something more dispersed, resilient and robust, but... whether these things are necessarily going to happen. ...[T]his is my wish list but it's up to all of us, everyone to demand another world and fight for it.
Opportunity is literally what it is called... [I]f you don't make something out of it, it's not going to produce anything by itself. ...[I]t's very important for citizens to demand, organize, talk about it... How we want to change the society having seen that... we don't all need to be in the office to become efficient workers, can we change the way we organize work? ...Can we work more often from home, if not completely? Can we, in that way, reduce because fewer people will not be ..? All of these things need to be discussed, but... unless we make demands, voice our concerns, it's not going to happen. ...In ...different industries ...the biggest losers will be people who provide face-to-face services. ...[T]his will be a huge problem for many developing countries especially, because a lot... rely heavily on tourism... [T]hat's going to be dead for a few years. Also in developing countries we have this huge informal sector, many of which involve face-to-face services. So when these people do not have customers, how are they going to cope? So in terms of the industry mix... it will depend on the country, but broadly speaking this will negatively affect poor or developing countries with a big service sector, especially informal sector, and countries like the US and the UK which rely on a lot of services, and countries which have a greater strength in manufacturing and material production are going to be relatively better off. So that's my prediction.
Thirdly and probably... a bit even more importantly, this crisis has made us think "What is really important?" ...[I[n the neoliberal system of thinking... that question doesn't even exist... because... in that system... something's value is... determined by the market. ...[T]his has been one of the key themes of the market economy where they have argued that there is no ethical system that can tell you what is more important and what is less important... [A]ll of these ideas about the that the Classical and Marxist economists have struggled with... are... nonsenses. If someone is that valuable, the market will make... sure... that person gets paid better... [W]hen progressive economists try to argue that there are some services that are essential, that are part of human rights... market economists... poo poo the idea. But now... the UK government is talking about key workers... the American government is talking about essential employees, and most of them are people who, in the market paradigm, were not very valuable... because these were people like—medical doctors are exceptions here—but... nurses... care home workers, people working in supermarkets, delivery people... people who have worked at very low wages, and therefore according to logical market economics... are not very valuable for society. But now we realize that without these people the society cannot be the same. We have also realized more broadly the importance of , unpaid care work and child care, household management, mostly done by women. These have been literally valued at zero because it's not marketed. Now we realize that without this care economy... product sector.., society cannot even exist...
In the US... because it has a very weak welfare state and weak , a lot of workers... couldn't take sick leave if they were ill, because if they don't work they don't get paid. ...[T]hese people had to go out... contributing to the spread of this disease... [W]hen something like this happens, it's not like... some fancy cancer drug... very expensive, and only rich people can buy and perhaps survive... [and] everyone else dies... Even if you are the most powerful, the richest people, you cannot avoid this thing, and... taking collective action to slow down the spread of disease... has made very important differences...
[T]hese big shifts ...making people really think about what is more important in our life, and the realization that we are all bound in a common destiny... [T]hese things are going to fundamentally influence the way that we design new society after this crisis. ...[A]t the global level ...this has been... an interesting experience because... you see that... there is no clear relationship between a country's level of income and how they have managed this... [T]he US, the UK, countries that used to lecture other countries on how to run their society, what kind of values they should uphold, how to manage the government... [T]hey have been shown to be in complete disarray. ...[T]his will be an opportunity where... a lot of developing countries' people overcome this inferiority complex that imperialism, colonialism and racism have... ingrained in many peoples' minds over the last few centuries. ...[S]o-called superior societies have seen tens of thousands of deaths... Vietnam, Kerala in India, Ethiopia... countries... very very poor, or other societies... have managed to contain this disease. ...[T]his is going to change the way developing country people perceive the so-called advanced countries. What are so advanced about them... when they are willing to... let tens of thousands of people die so that... puffs can make more money.
[I]t's up to societies... especially the citizens to demand these things, to create systems that will... not only enable the country to deal with these kind of crises in the future, but... more importantly that... can make the society more equal. ...My point is, we have to start the discussion. ...We have to talk about this. ...The people have to keep banging on, "Why did you keep all those claps [applause] during those eight weeks in the spring to the nurses but then you didn't pay them any more? ...Why is the NHS so dilapidated? We have to keep pushing... otherwise the people in power are not going to do that.