Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism

In Bad Samaritans, economist Ha-Joon Chang challenges the dominant narrative that free markets and neoliberal globalization are the keys to economic success. Instead, he argues that the very nations promoting these policies—wealthy Western countries and global institutions like the IMF and World Bank—built their own economies through protectionism, industrial policy, and state intervention. Now, these same nations act as “Bad Samaritans” by forcing weaker countries to embrace policies that they themselves never followed when developing. Chang’s argument is bold: neoliberal free trade does not help developing nations—it traps them in dependency and underdevelopment. He provides historical evidence, case studies, and economic analysis to prove that successful economies like the U.S., Britain, Germany, Japan, and South Korea only industrialized through state-led economic planning, not free-market policies.

Coming from Turkey where all the illnesses and problems caused by the attitudes of the "Bad Samaritans" in this book are visible, I strongly recommend this valuable collection of arguments and examples to every developing country government official, especially to my own. The arguments in the book cleverly and clearly demonstrates how IMF, The World Bank and WTO trio pressures developing countries for strictly following free-trade practices while the country's citizens suffer under well developed tactics of rich multinational companies, freely moving hot money of the global funds and all sorts of international pressures on the developing governments and media. These tactics are at work in my country now and they are stronger than ever: All profit making SOE's have been sold, the Istanbul Stock Exchange is a little toy shop for the fast moving foreign money and there is hardly any bank left for Turkish owners. No rich country in the world became what it is, with free-trade, let them do methods. This is a fact the author very clearly demonstrates. As a matter of fact there is a former and more technical book on the same subject and this new book is in a way a laymen version of "Kicking Away the Ladder", Chang's 2002 book. I would like to invest my own spare time to translate this wonderfully eye opening book into Turkish. It is also interesting to note that the vivid personal accounts of the author in the first chapter, about his childhood times in South Korea closely resembles my own in the 1970's Turkey. It is sad for me to realize once again that Korean policy-makers have understood the lessons examined in this book early on, in the 1980's, and the Turkish politicians and business elders missed them. It is no coincidence that this book was written by a Korean economist. Excellent read, recommended to every developing country policy maker and citizen. And I don't think any reviewer from a developed country gets how terrible the situation caused by the neoliberal policies is, as far as I can tell from the reviews written here.

Naomi Klein's masterful work Shock Doctrine documents in exhaustive detail what is wrong with the free trade theory and practice that is being enforced around the globe. This work, though much smaller and simpler in scale, essentially confirms what Klein says, that the IMF and WTO and World Bank are not the helpers of the developing world, but their enslavers. Klein, however, personalizes her accusations, blaming the Chicago Boys (ie disciples of Milton Friedman's Chicago School of economics) and presents it as almost a grand conspiracy. Chang sees less bad intent and more misunderstanding behind the disastrously wrong prescription being given to the world for how to prosper. The writing style is clear and simple, and no one should have much trouble following Chang's line of reasoning. He makes good use of a few simple metaphors to prove his point. His image of his son, and his need for sheltering and support until he can get an education and grow up to be a productive member of society is memorable--the point being that urging under-developed countries to compete on a level playing field with mature manufacturing countries is just as silly as sending his 8 year old off to work would be. The comparison is telling because just as the non-productive years of a child's life is what enables him to become well-educated, so too there are children whose future is foreclosed by their need to work from childhood. Developing countries are in just that position. The main weakness that I see in this book is a certain thinness in the factual support. Very large conclusions are often apparently supported by a handful of examples. His native Korea was as poor as Mozambique just a generation ago, and look what it's done. Therefore, don't rule out Mozambique as a future world power. But are there other similar examples? European travelers thought Japanese were lazy 100 years ago. Ok, but the evidence is one or two small anecdotes. Was that really the general view? Was it really a widespread belief that Germans were inefficient and corrupt? Also, most who oppose things like NAFTA in this country do so because it is hurting our own economy. Is there really much concern in the US for the consequences for the poor countries? One can only assume that free trade must be beneficial for *someone* and if it isn't the poor countries, it would probably be...us. So the idea that we're doing this for our own benefit may not sit well with American protectionists. But an enlightening read, and very accessible.

People in rich countries who preach free market and free trade to poor countries without realising they are hurting the developing countries with their policies are "Bad Samaritans", according to Ha-Joon Chang in this book. As someone who grew up in Korea during the time of that country's "economic miracle", he says the rapid economic growth was certainly not attributable to free trade. The arguments made by the author include: * Historically, the best-performing economies have adopted free trade selectively and gradually. * A substantial period of protection is often required to nurture infant industries. * Free trade reduces freedom of choice for poor countries. * Government interference in commerce is sometimes good for development. * Intellectual property rights favour rich countries at the expense of poor countries. In my view, some of the author's arguments are compelling. It really is difficult to find a country which has started poor and become rich solely as a result of free markets and free trade. On the other hand, the conditions under which government interference with free trade succeeds in promoting development remain mysterious. Most government attempts at interference seem to have negative rather than positive influences on economic growth. The book suggests that all intellectual property rights are bad for development, but I think it is more accurate to say that countries which have become wealthy have tended to give strong protection of intellectual property rights to nationals while according weak protection to foreigners. So what policies should a poor African country adopt today? Many such countries have very high tariffs on imports, and this is a major source of government revenue. However, these tariffs are restraining trade and helping to keep the countries poor. The author seems to suggest that such countries should choose some manufacturing industries to protect, in the hope of reaping rewards from them in the future, while reducing tariff barriers to encourage free trade in other areas. The book is well written and a great pleasure to read, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in development.

This book was a real eye-opener for me. It reveals the hypocrisy behind the capitalist countries' preaching of free trade and globalization, showing how they themselves relied on protectionist practices at their development phases. The gist of the book is that countries require protectionism at their early developing stages in order to nurture their domestic industries until they reach a competitive level, and that free markets are more appropriate for these countries once their development has sufficiently matured. Unfortunately, worldwide institutions like the International Monetary Fund, and the capitalist countries including the U.S. that back them, have in effect been forcing capitalist policies onto Third World and developing countries as a condition for the financial support that they desperately need, which is both practically and morally wrong. In case there is any misunderstanding: This is not an anti-capitalist book. It is simply stating that countries should adopt capitalist practices gradually, in their own terms. It is not leftist either. It attributes a major reason for South Korea's economic success to the smart policies of governments in the previous decades, which inevitably includes the dictatorial Park Chung Hee regime that is resented by leftists and extolled by many conservatives in Korea. Firmly backed by facts, figures, and analysis from a true scholar of economics at Cambridge University, one would be doing himself/herself a great disservice by subscribing only to the dilettantish views of Thomas Friedman & company and accepting them as truth without reading this book. In his discussion on the misguided "faith" in free markets held by some people in developed capitalist nations, the author Dr. Ha-Joon Chang also leaves me one of the most memorable quotes ever: "self-righteousness is often more stubborn than self-interest."

This was the second book of Ha-joon Chang that I read, after 23 Things. This book has a much clearer narrative structure than the other, and does a very good job of chasing the (not so) secret history of protectionism and trade wars that has facilitated the rise of the west. He does a very good job of covering various myths about certain cultures being incapable of capitalism or hard work, as well as of flipping various common assumptions we have about modern, developed nations on their heads. This book also benefits very much from Chang talking at length about his own life experience, which experienced the dramatic transformation of Korea from one of the poorest countries on earth to an "economic miracle." I am currently reading Economics: The User's Guide, but I think as a first introduction to Ha-joon Chang, Bad Samaritans is probably the better choice. It's focused, it's relevant, and it's easy to read. I will say that one weakness of Ha-joon Chang as an author is that his work seems to use a lot of the same examples again, while he uses the same jokes and examples in his public talks as in his books. For this reason, it's probably better to pick a few choice works instead of reading them all.

Great book. Easy to read, even funny on some occasions, although it is about macroeconomics. But also very disturbing. Because what Chang says, and especially the examples he gives, are probably all things that, taken separately case by case, we all know pretty well. So why is it that we never do, as Chang has brilliantly done, put them all together in a logical sequence and then draw the obvious conclusions? Why is it that ideas and policies about economic development that profit first and formost the very rich of this world, why is it that they have become "orthodoxy", and economists such as Chang who stick to hard facts and unbiased (or true) history - are only critics, few and far between? When I finished reading this book, this was the big question in my mind, and it is a disturbing one. I also think that it would be impossible to disagree with Chang and his ideas if one accepts his main argument (at least the one that I found to constitute the core of his whole thesis). This argument is: fair competition can only happen between equals. Infant industries simply cannot compete with heavyweights on a free for all field. No one can argue with that. Therefore, whoever wishes a truly fair and truly democratic free competitive market around the world should allow first the begginers to "grow up". In ancient Athens, they invented the republican system because existing direct democracy was favoring the poor majority and putting the rich minority at a disadvantage. Athenians wanted - and succeeded - to prevent in this manner what we call today "mobocracy". If I got it right, Chang is saying that some "republican system" should also be imposed on "direct globalization", because this time round we have a "democracy" (neo-liberal global economics) that puts the poors at a disadvantage, and we thus risk an "elitocracy".

Bad Samaritans... is a compelling argument against the minimalist, laissez-faire state proposed by hard-core neoliberals, especially in the context of developing countries. Ha-Joon Chang advocates a 'judicious mix of market and government' (phrase frequently reiterated throughout the book). HJC's views were criticized by William Easterly, who said that HJC's argument suffered from confirmation bias: allegedly HJC presents too few countries to support his view, and makes the error of looking at developed economies and works his way backward to the times when they embarked on protectionism, subsidies, planning etc., instead of looking at all countries which employed such policies and seeing how many succeeded and how many didn't. The exchange of arguments between Easterly and HJC is available online and is interesting to read as a sort of afterword of the book. In my view the 'reverse engineering' HJC exercises in Bad Samaritans is by all ways a valid way of reasoning: look at the leaders and analyze how they became ones. Easterly says there were countries which resorted to planning and protectionism, but failed. He misses the point. The message HJS attempts to convey is that active state is a necessary but not sufficient condition to succeed; history shows that with active state success is possible, but not guaranteed. It also shows that the vast majority of successful countries have applied the market-with-government mix as opposed to laissez-faire. HJC proposes an interesting view, that insisting on limited government in democracies, 'Unholy Trinity' insists in fact on limited democracy; it promotes one dollar, one vote system in place of the one person, one vote system. One thing conspicuous by its absence in HJC's book is the labour market. Unregulated labour market is also presented by neoliberals as a condition for success, but again history shows that labour market regulations (minimum wage, unemployment benefits, retraining schemes etc. etc.) do not necessarily hamper growth, but ensure that some mimimum standard of life is guaranteed even to the weakest. After all, "no society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable." (Adam Smith)

開発経済学の専門家の面目躍如たる著作である。『世界経済を破綻させる23の嘘』は、いわば本書のQ&A版と言えるかもしれない。途上国の発展段階や歴史的様相により、かれらを繁栄に導くための処方箋もまた多様であることを明快に論証する一冊である。ブリリアントな研究者によるブリリアントな著作としてどのような読書人をも失望させない秀作である。

This book carefully brings together in a readable form much current factual information which is particularly useful to bring one up to speed on this topic. For this I would recommend it to readers new to this subject. I didn't find anything really new in here, but what is here is solid. It is written from a progressive lens, so neo-liberals free marketers have to take it on the chin....

E' stato sicuramente un ottimo prodotto in relazione al prezzo! Consigliato; Spero di tornare a comprare da voi. Cordiali saluti

Leíble

Insightful, well arguemented and provocative