According to the conventional wisdom popularized by Thomas Friedman, countries can grow rich only by means of unfettered capitalism and pure free trade. In his controversial book, Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism, Ha-Joon Chang takes aim at this orthodoxy. Combining irreverent wit with scholarly rigor, Chang shows that nations like the U.S. that achieved their present wealth by means of economic nationalism now preach an entirely different set of policies to the developing world, via the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization. Chang calls on us not only to re-evaluate the policies we promote to countries seeking to grow rich, but also to become reacquainted with our own forgotten economic history.
Ha-Joon Chang has been described by one economist as “the most exciting thinker our profession has turned out in the past fifteen years.” He teaches at Cambridge University, where he received his Master’s degree and doctorate. A consultant for the Wold Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the UN and other international organizations, he was awarded the Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought in 2005. His book Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective (2002), which received the Myrdal Prize, was acclaimed by the eminent MIT economist Charles Kindleberger as “a provocative critique of mainstream economists’ sermons directed to developing countries.”
This reminds me of Dinesh D’Souza who credits Christianity for all the good things commonly attributed to The Age of Enlightenment.
Always the same “correlation = causation” fallacies all over again. The formula looks like this:
US = economic nationalism; US = prosperity
→ economic nationalism = prosperity
The United States were (to my knowledge) the largest single market in the 19th and early 20th century, maybe aside from Britain and its colonies. Of course, such a territory will be comparatively rich even if it imposes tariffs and trade restrictions. What’s so bold about stating that if it hadn’t been for trade restrictions, maybe they would’ve become even richer? And if economic nationalism is such a swell thing, why don’t we employ on the state level? County? Street?
Man, how I don’t like people who want to tell me whom I can trade with and for what price.
I took a quick look at this book at Barnes and Nobles, I don’t think it’s worth reading unless it gets massivly popular. Has anyone ever looked at the econ section of Barnes and Nobles and compared pro market vs anti market books? Also notice how much Marx is displayed in a positive way vs say Adam Smith.
I think both (market/anti-market, smith/marx) are portrayed fairly and if anything the free-market stance (at least what a marxist would consider one) is more prominent in B&N as representing more of a mainstream econ apporach (eg. a lot of microeconomics and macroeconomics study guides and self-education books). I’ve even seen milton friedman and thomas sowell books there.
I’ve seen Hayek and some Austrian-friendly mainstream economists before and B&N. I think I remember seeing something by Kirzner once, although I may be mistaken.
Where I live (Montreal) mainstream bookstores have no “Economics” sections - only Politics, Sociology, or Society or some such. And they are overwhelmingly filled with books that criticize the market, capitalism and liberalism in every sense and under every angle. I have never seen a pro-market book on sale, except perhaps in the case of historically important texts (like, say, Adam Smith) which are unequivocally placed in the section for historical books. I have no doubt that Mr. Chang will be a smash hit here, just like Amartya Sen, Chomsky and countless others.
The other day I was pleased to see Economics in One Lesson, The Road to Serfdom, and some others in the B&N near me. I picked up Tom Woods’ Meltdown, which was in a “financial crisis” display with a few others (mostly anti-market, but Im just glad it was there with them),
It looked like there were a good amount of anti-market books though, but the real Marxist books are all in the Philosophy section
It seems like bookstores are more about conservative or liberal schemes to correct the market or make crap more efficient or something. Both Friedmans (Miltie and Thommie) are pretty popular. But both are/were about schemes of efficiency instead of free markets on principle. After the fall of the Berlin wall, that attitude replaced the out and out socialism.
B&N and amazon are both heroes of the market, though in my opinion, and do provide any of the books you’d want if you order them online. And for topics that people read more about (economics not being one, sadly), they do have an excellent stock instore.