[H]ow do we rebuild society? ...My answers ...have ...been contained in my analysis of the crisis. - Ha-Joon Chang

The pandemic has revealed that... poor people—people in marginalized communities—are more prone to contract the disease and die from it because of generally worse health, limited access to health care, and other things that define this unequal society. ...[A] positive way to respond to this is to accept that and find a way to reduce that inequality, and it is already happening in some countries. ...I'm not usually a cheerleader for my own country, South Korea... we have so many shameful world records... the highest suicide rate, the lowest fertility rate... name it, but South Korea has... managed the pandemic really well, first of all because... despite this general aversion to the welfare state, it has a very robust public health insurance. ...So anyone who had problems could... get tested and treated... This is how you manage to keep the death toll under 300, but in that country... because it controlled the health situation so well, it actually didn't go into full lockdown, but still, people were wary of going out and the biggest sufferers from this was... people... running small bars, restaurants, karaoke bars... [T]hese people were very hard hit and... I was... surprised [the country is] talking about universal employment insurance scheme. So... it doesn't matter what your job used to be... Countries are now talking about introducing that covers people who work in any type of company, self-employed people, social platform workers, people working in the . ...[I]f it happens it will be a really progressive change...

Manufacturing is the most important...route to prosperity.

[W]e are talking about a huge crisis... It's been all encompassing because in other crises usually there's one bit of the economy that goes wrong... Oil prices go up, collapses and so on, but this time... it's everything. It's about demand... production... the financial market... global supply chain... [A]s a result... the changes that we had to make... the kind of policies that governments have introduced to deal with this have been very very different and comprehensive compared to previous comparable crises.