People who live in poor countries have to be entrepreneurial even just to survive.
Ha-Joon ChangRead
Once you realize that trickle-down economics does not work, you will see the excessive tax cuts for the rick as what they are -- a simple upward redistribution of income, rather than a way to make all of us richer, as we were told.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote critiques trickle-down economics, arguing that it leads to wealth accumulation for the rich rather than benefitting everyone.
Ha-Joon Chang's quote emphasizes the flaws in trickle-down economics, which claims that benefits provided to the wealthy will ultimately trickle down to the rest of society. He argues that instead of creating a more equitable wealth distribution, these tax cuts primarily serve to exacerbate income inequality, effectively redistributing wealth upwards rather than enriching the population at large.
Themes
EconomicsIncome InequalityTax CutsWealth Redistribution
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion on economic policies, one might use this quote to highlight the inefficacy of tax cuts for the wealthy.
More from Ha-Joon Chang
All quotes →The widely accepted assertion that, only if you let markets be will everyone be paid correctly and thus fairly, according to his worth, is a myth. Only when we part with this myth and grasp the political nature of the market and the collective nature of individual productivity will we be able to build a more just society in which historical legacies and collective actions, and not just individual talents and efforts, are properly taken into account in deciding how to reward people.
Ha-Joon ChangRead
Equality of opportunity is meaningless for those who do not have the capabilities to take advantage of it.
Ha-Joon ChangRead
The higher education system in these countries (US, Korea etc) has become like a theatre in which some people decided to stand to get a better view, promoting the others behind them to stand. Once enough people stand, everyone has to stand, which means no one is getting a better view, while everyone has become more uncomfortable.
Ha-Joon ChangRead
There is no such thing as a free market.
Ha-Joon ChangRead
[Good managers] know that people have 'good' sides and 'bad' sides and that the secret of good management is in magnifying the former and toning down the latter.
Ha-Joon ChangRead
Similar quotes
Thus, our national circulating medium is now at the mercy of loan transactions of banks, which lend, not money, but promises to supply money they do not possess
Irving FisherRead
No complaint... is more common than that of a scarcity of money.
Adam SmithRead
When the rate of return on capital exceeds the rate of growth of output and income, as it did in the nineteenth century and seems quite likely to do again in the twenty-first, capitalism automatically generates arbitrary and unsustainable inequalities that radically undermine the meritocratic values on which democratic societies are based.
Thomas PikettyRead
The 'boom-bust' cycle is generated by monetary intervention in the market, specifically bank credit expansion to business.
Murray RothbardRead
Today, the average Korean works a thousand hours more a year than the average German. A thousand. ... That is the end of the Great Divergence.
Niall FergusonRead
Why do we fully tax some kinds of income from capital, like interest and dividends; partially tax other kinds like capital gains; defer tax on other kinds, like IRAs; and impose no tax at all on still other types of capital income, like interest on municipal bonds? This simply is not rational. These distinctions don't have any inherent logic.
Bill BradleyRead