People who live in poor countries have to be entrepreneurial even just to survive.
Ha-Joon ChangRead
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.
Interpretation
This quote critiques the idea that free markets automatically ensure fair compensation for everyone's contributions.
Ha-Joon Chang argues that the widely held belief in the fairness of market-driven rewards is flawed. He emphasizes the necessity of recognizing the political underpinnings of markets and the importance of collective efforts and historical context in shaping individual productivity and compensation. By acknowledging these factors, society can create a more equitable system for rewarding individuals based on their true contributions.
In practice
This quote can be used in a presentation about economic equity.
People who live in poor countries have to be entrepreneurial even just to survive.
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.
Equality of opportunity is meaningless for those who do not have the capabilities to take advantage of it.
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.
There is no such thing as a free market.
[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.
Thousands of important and intelligent men have never been able to grasp the principle of comparative advantage or believe it even after it was explained to them
The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe.
I'm quite worried about the fiscal imbalances that we've got and what that might mean in terms of financial crisis ahead.
The last thing you want to do is raise taxes in the middle of the recession because that would just suck up and take more demand out of the economy and put businesses in a further hole.
I truly believe that capitalism was created to help people live better lives, but sadly over the years it has lost its way a bit. The short-term focus on profit has driven most businesses to forget about the important long-term role they have in taking care of people and the planet.
One of the arguments I make for the failure of the euro is that, at the time it was being constructed, there was a 'neo-liberal' ideology which said that all we need to do to make this thing work is to get deficits low, keep inflation low, and take down barriers, and then everything would be fine.
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