Corruption exists because there is too much, not too little, market. Ha-Joon Chang More Quotes by Ha-Joon Chang More Quotes From Ha-Joon Chang It's not just about the current economic environment. History shows that slashing budgets always leads to recession. Ha-Joon Chang economiccurrentsenvironment Low inflation and government prudence may be harmful for economic development. Ha-Joon Chang governmentdevelopmentmay To paraphrase Winston Churchill, capitalism is the worst economic system except for all the other forms. Ha-Joon Chang economicworstform The top 10 per cent of the US population appropriated 91 per cent of income growth between 1989 and 2006, while the top 1 per cent took 59 per cent. Ha-Joon Chang top-10populationgrowth The invention of the printing press was one of the most important events in human history. Ha-Joon Chang important-eventsprintinginvention Culture changes with economic development. Ha-Joon Chang economicdevelopmentculture History is on the side of the regulators. Ha-Joon Chang regulatorssides All the alleged key causes of SOE [State-Owned Enterprise] inefficiency - the principal-agent problem, the free-rider problem and the soft budget constraint - are, while real, not unique to state-owned enterprises. Large private-sector firms with dispersed ownership also suffer from the principal-agent problem and the free-rider problem. So, in these two areas, forms of ownership do matter, but the critical divide is not between state and private ownership - it is between concentrated and dispersed ownerships. Ha-Joon Chang uniquekeysreal The foundation of economic development is the acquisition of more productive knowledge. Ha-Joon Chang acquisitionfoundationdevelopment 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. Ha-Joon Chang innovationarmytechnology The feeling of insecurity is inimical to our sense of wellbeing, as it causes anxiety and stress, which harms our physical and mental health. It is no surprise then that, according to some surveys, workers across the world value job security more highly than wages. Ha-Joon Chang jobstresshealthworld Gone are the days when the upper classes were terrified of the angry mob wanting to smash their skulls and confiscate their properties. Now their biggest enemy is the army of lazy bums, whose lifestyle of indolence and hedonism, financed by crippling taxes on the rich, is sucking the lifeblood out of the economy. Ha-Joon Chang angryricharmyenemy Sometimes people with strong ideology, whether left-wing or right-wing, refuse to do something simply because they believe it is wrong, when doing it actually benefits them. For some people, it's not just about money and political power. Ha-Joon Chang moneypowerbelievepeople To put it bluntly, there isn't one economic theory that can single-handedly explain Singapore's success; its economy combines extreme features of capitalism and socialism. All theories are partial; reality is complex. Ha-Joon Chang capitalismsocialismsuccessreality By liberating women from household work and helping to abolish professions such as domestic service, the washing machine and other household goods completely revolutionised the structure of society. Ha-Joon Chang servicewomensocietywork In the 19th century, a lot of people were against outlawing child labour, because to do so would be against the very foundations of a free market economy: 'These children want to work, these people want to employ them... what is your problem? It's not as if anyone has kidnapped them...' Ha-Joon Chang childworkchildrenpeople Patent monopoly creates a lot of problems. It allows the patentee to charge the maximum to consumers. This may not be a problem if the patented product is a luxury item, like parts that go into a smartphone, but can violate basic human rights if it involves things such as life-saving drugs. Ha-Joon Chang problemsluxuryhuman-rightsproblem People always think they're in the middle of a revolution while they tend not to realize the enormity of a change that has happened in the past. The telegraph was a revolution, but who looks at it that way these days? The telegraph sped up the transportation of messages over long distances by a huge factor. Ha-Joon Chang changelongpeoplepast Free market economists frequently see minimum wage legislation as mere political intervention. However, there are decent economic theories which show that, under certain circumstances, minimum wages can be beneficial, as it makes workers more productive. Ha-Joon Chang freeseepoliticalcircumstances A lot of things that we cannot buy and sell in markets used to be totally legal objects of market exchange - human beings when we had slavery, child labour, human organs, and so on. So there is no economic theory that actually says that you shouldn't have slavery or child labour because all these are political, ethical judgments. Ha-Joon Chang legalchildyouslavery
