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

We found 37 Reddit comments about Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

Business & Money
Books
Economics
Economic History
Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism
Check price on Amazon

37 Reddit comments about Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism:

u/ProblemY · 105 pointsr/todayilearned

I recommend a book Bad Samaritans about how developed countries made their problems even bigger.

Africa had hard time developing for example because western banks constantly enable capital flight from those poor countries. Developed countries forced underdeveloped countries to open the markets for many goods but at the same time they maintain very high tariffs on products they could export like food. Blaming everything on African warlords while forgetting about post-colonial practices of exploitation and imposing failed economic ideas is very dishonest.

u/[deleted] · 31 pointsr/worldnews

A lot of this is based on their history and what they learned.

From the Opium Wars, learned firsthand what can happen when foreign companies become too powerful and exploit the fuck out of the locals. So when the Communists came to power, they made sure this could never happen again by requiring majority Chinese ownership.

This is no longer the case anymore though. These days, companies are allowed to be majority foreign owned, but behind the scenes, if you want to really succeed, then you'll need a Chinese partner.

The second thing they learned is to see how protectionist policies, and even outright IP theft, helped Western countries grow.

And of course more recently, the "Asian tigers" of South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong (add in Japan as well).

So they learned to emulate the policies of these countries.

For those interested in learning more, check the book Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism

u/DracoX872 · 15 pointsr/badeconomics

> (https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Samaritans-Secret-History-Capitalism/dp/1596915986) If post length were the basis for winning an argument, you'd win. However, you have little idea what you are talking about due to your neoliberal blinders. Try reading the book at the link, which exactly supports the point I made.

Why is your only source a book that supports your prior beliefs? Why is it that a huge majority of economists support free trade, and you choose to disagree based on one book?

Maybe "you have little idea what you are talking about due to your neoliberal blinders" corporate shilling.

u/waspbr · 9 pointsr/BrasildoB

Mais um capitulo da série de coisas que achei para ouvir durante a natação:

Perambulando pelo /r/lectures achei esse thread sobre o video : 23 Things they don't tell you about capitalism, do coreano Ha-Joon Chang, que supostamente foi aluno do Joseph Stiglitz.

No thread tem um link com referencias dos livros dele e teve um que achei particularmente interessante: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism

Dei uma fuçada e achei o livro em formato de audio no youtube. Já ouvi o prefácio e achei interessante. O autor desmitifica muita coisa que é dita sobre o desenvolvimento da Coreia ao longo dos anos e o mito da Coreia ter sido um dos bastiões do mercado livre.

Como o livro é um pouco longo baixei no meu celular para ouvir enquanto dirijo/ ando de bicicleta também.

Para quem se interessar baixar eu sugiro essa ferramenta (Win/Linux/OSX), que é uma GUI para o youtube-dl

u/RangerPL · 5 pointsr/EnoughCommieSpam

Would that be before or after the USSR looted East Germany for anything of economic value?

As for growth, there's a reason I said "long term". Some measure of central planning is necessary for economic development (and, in fact, it is argued by some that the developed, capitalist world today owes its success to central planning and restricted trade during its earlier stages of development), but the levels of growth seen in the Eastern bloc were unsustainable. The collapse was not just some unfortunate event that derailed the great socialist experiment, it was its consequence.

u/testeemctest · 5 pointsr/Economics

If you frame this as a "our free market" vs "their central planning" debate, I have some recommended reading.

Economic planning, done right, can be incredibly beneficial.

u/TheElusiveGnome · 4 pointsr/IRstudies

Have a look at Bad Samaritans. In short, the World Bank perpetuates economic neoliberalism. Neoliberal policies promote the liberalization of trade, which means that developing countries are not given the chance to nurture the infant industries that could make them competitive in world markets. Essentially, the World Bank is in the business of ensuring that developing countries never develop.

u/ee4m · 3 pointsr/JordanPeterson

This is just a reframing of the one argument you all bleat like sheep, the answer is supposed to lead back to the body count. In realty your question rules out those regimes.


Catalonia is a good example.

Highly democratic, worker owned and controlled co ops.


On a large scale, nationally owned industry. Which is still an important part of any economy, nationalized health care, large scale state investment in modern infrastructure too.



Social democracy got us out best gains.


Liberalism just kept most poor, and now we have Neo liberalism its stagnation or going backwards as is the emerging trend.


https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Samaritans-Secret-History-Capitalism/dp/1596915986

u/iwanderedlonely · 3 pointsr/CapitalismVSocialism

In addition to the recent IMF admission about some aspects of economic liberalism that they imposed as loan conditions leading to boom and bust cycles that impoverished their victims beneficiaries, there is a strong argument by Ho-Joon Chang based on actual history that today's economic superpowers―from the U .S. to Britain to his native Korea―all attained prosperity by shameless protectionism and government intervention in industry.

u/MikeBoda · 3 pointsr/Anarchism

The point about scab goods isn't specific to the border. The idea is that scab products get rejected regardless of where they are produced. Now, judging whether the union involved in genuinely democratic and not racist isn't something we can generalize about. Democracy has to deal with these issues on a case by case basis. Dealing with them somewhat imperfectly or even arbitrarily is better than ignoring them and continuing to support slave labor practices.

Rather than spending your time nitpicking about current tariff rates (which tell you nothing about the history of a nation's development), why don't you read more thorough and comprehensive analysis of the history of development?

u/zorno · 3 pointsr/progressive

Read this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Samaritans-Secret-History-Capitalism/dp/1596915986/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395673735&sr=1-1&keywords=bad+samaritans

Free markets do work... with a caveat. Right now they are being used to keep poor nations poor.

All of the rich nations today got there using policies that are not neoliberal at all, and pushing neoliberalism on a poor nations keeps them poor.

For example, there is a country in africa that wanted to invest in solar energy and start producing them. the US advised then to follow free market principles, which mean the government should not subsidize or invest in that industry. So... no solar panels. The country doesnt have enough wealth to pick themselves up by their bootstraps, so if the goverment doesnt subsidize a new industry, it is much more likely to fail.

here is another quick example:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/world/africa/02malawi.html?pagewanted=all

Malawi was starving following free market ideas. The government subsidized fertilizer and now they are feeding themselves AND exporting food to neighboring countries.

Your comment is very naive, dont fall for the propaganda.

u/pichicagoattorney · 3 pointsr/explainlikeimfive

I think Japan was very protectionist in what products it would let in. Was and still is.

Korea did the same thing post Korean War to become the industrial power it is today. Went from poorer than Bottswana to what it is now.

Really great book discusses how great powers become great -- easy, wonderful read:

https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Samaritans-Secret-History-Capitalism/dp/1596915986

u/krtong · 2 pointsr/badhistory

In the beginning, there was no American economy, only the British imperial economy. The plantations, or colonies, in North America were intended to help the British Empire in its rivalry with the other major powers of Europe. In the centuries before it unilaterally began to adopt free trade in 1846, Britain, like other European states, practiced mercantilism, a policy that treated the economy as an instrument of state power. Mercantilist policies included subsidies and preferential tax treatment for favored industries and their raw material inputs, efforts to obtain surpluses in precious metals like gold and silver and in high-value-added exports, and the conquest or founding of colonies whose inhabitants would provide markets and raw materials for the mother country. In his 1684 treatise England’s Treasure by Foreign Trade, the mercantilist theorist Thomas Mun wrote: “The ordinary means therefore to increase our wealth and treasure is by Foreign Trade, wherein we must ever observe this rule: to sell more to strangers yearly than we consume of theirs in value.” The king in 1721 told Parliament that “it is evident that nothing so much contributes to promote the public well-being as the exportation of manufactured goods and the importation of foreign raw material.”


No philosopher influenced the American Revolution more than the seventeenth-century English political thinker John Locke. Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence is practically a paraphrase of Locke’s writings on natural rights and liberty. In economics, Locke was a mercantilist, not a libertarian. In his Letter Concerning Toleration, Locke says that “the pravity of Mankind . . . Obliges Men to enter into Society with one another, that by mutual Assistance, and joint Force, they may secure unto each other their Properties in the things that contribute to the Comfort and Happiness of this Life . . . But forasmuch as Men thus entering into Societies, . . . may nevertheless be deprived of them, either by the Rapine and Fraud of their Fellow-Citizens, or by the Hostile Violence of Foreigners; the remedy of this Evil consists in Arms, Riches, and Multitude of Citizens; the Remedy of the other in Laws.” For Locke, as for other early-modern mercantilists, military power, economic growth, and population growth were mutually reinforcing, and all three enhanced the ability of the state to defend its people in an anarchic world. In a journal entry in 1674, Locke wrote: “The chief end of trade is riches and power, which beget each other. Riches consists in plenty of moveables, that will yield a price to foreigners, and are not likely to be consumed at home, but especially in plenty of gold and silver. Power consists in numbers of men, and ability to maintain them. Trade conduces to both these by increasing your stock and your people, and they each other.”


The policy of mercantilism that Britain shared with other European empires included a division of labor in which British manufacturers sold finished products to a captive market of consumers in the American colonies, Ireland, and India, which in return exported raw materials and food to the British Isles. In 1721, the British Board of Trade told the king: “Having no manufactories of their own, their . . . situation will make them always dependent on Great Britain.” The British parliamentarian Edmund Burke, who sympathized with the American colonists, summarized the policy: “These colonies were evidently founded in subservience to the commerce of Great Britain . . . On the same idea it was contrived that they should send all their products to us raw, and in their first state; and that they should take every thing from us in the last stage of manufacture.” Adam Smith made a similar observation in The Wealth of Nations, which was published in 1776, the same year in which the American colonies that would form the United States declared their independence: “The liberality of England, however, towards the trade of her colonies has been confined chiefly to what concerns the market for their produce, either in its rude state, or in what may be called the very first stage of manufacture. The more advanced or more refined manufactures even of the colony produce, the merchants and manufactures of Great Britain choose to reserve to themselves, and have prevailed upon the legislature to prevent their establishment in the colonies, sometimes by high duties, and sometimes by absolute prohibitions.”

Beginning in the seventeenth century, England (which became Great Britain with the 1707 Act of Union with Scotland) sought to prevent the development of colonial manufacturing that might compete with British manufacturing by a variety of methods. The Navigation Acts, passed in 1651, 1660, and 1663, required all English trade to be carried in English ships with majority-English crews. All items in “enumerated” categories going to or from the American colonies had to be unloaded in Britain, taxed, and then reexported. The colonists were permitted to buy only British goods or goods that had been reexported from Britain.

The imperial government outlawed American exports that competed with British manufactured goods. For example, the 1699 Woolens Act forbade the sale of woolen cloth outside of the place where it was woven. This destroyed the Irish woolen industry and prevented the emergence of one in the American colonies. In 1732, Britain similarly destroyed an emerging beaver-hat industry in the colonies by outlawing the export of hats to other colonies or foreign countries. When Parliament lifted a ban on exports of pig iron and bar iron from the colonies in 1750, it outlawed further development of the industry. But the colonists ignored the prohibition and by 1775 the annual production of iron in the colonies, most of it for domestic consumption, was roughly the same as in Britain, despite the smaller colonial population.

Even as it banned manufactured exports from the American colonies to Britain or other parts of the empire, the imperial government encouraged the export of raw materials from the colonies to Britain. Import duties on wood and hemp from the American colonies to Britain were abolished. The colonists also received bounties, or subsidies, for exporting raw materials. Timber from the abundant forests of North America was particularly important. The purpose of regulation was to create a buyer’s market in raw materials and a seller’s market in manufactured goods for British industry.

Hindering the transfer of technology from Britain to America was another British mercantilist technique. In 1719, Britain banned the emigration of skilled workers in industries including steel, iron, brass, watchmaking, and wool. The law punished suborning, or recruitment, of skilled workers for employment abroad with fines or imprisonment. Skilled immigrants who did not return to Britain within six months of being warned by a British official faced the confiscation of their goods and property and the withdrawal of their citizenship.13 Britain followed its ban on the emigration of skilled workers with a ban on the export of wool and silk technology in 1750. In 1781 and 1785, the act was enlarged into a comprehensive ban on machinery of all kinds. The ban on skilled emigrants was repealed only in 1825, while the ban on technology exports lasted until 1842.

Evaluated in terms of its goal of fostering domestic manufacturing at the expense of other countries, Britain’s mercantilist system was a great success. Between the reign of the Tudors and the nineteenth century, Britain’s state-sponsored program of economic development turned the island nation first into a commercial and financial powerhouse and then into the first superpower of the machine age. But Britain’s imperial trade laws thwarted American manufacturers and frustrated American merchants, who frequently smuggled goods from other colonies and countries. The government also antagonized the colonists after the Seven Years’ War (French and Indian War) of 1756 to 1763, when it attempted to ban white settlement of large areas of the trans-Appalachian West, in order to avert conflict with the Indians. This enraged land-hungry Anglo-American frontiersmen as well as rich American colonials like George Washington who owned vast tracts of western land. These economic conflicts, along with struggles over power and status, helped to ignite the American War of Independence from 1775 to 1783.

u/ghost_throw38 · 2 pointsr/news

May be interesting
https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Samaritans-Secret-History-Capitalism/dp/1596915986

Sometimes it feels like our entire political economy is locked into extinct ideological framing and are fighting over how to pull is to one or the other nonsensical extreme.

u/zombiesingularity · 2 pointsr/Libertarian

> the capitalist class (which brings you your iphone, reddit, a robust internet, tv, whatever the fuck else you shit on

All the technologies you claim are created by capitalism are actually the result of public sector research and government funding, lol (in fact almost all technologies are the result of public research, not private sector research): http://time.com/4089171/mariana-mazzucato/

> But for capitalism, you'd be in a mud hut picking through your shit for leftovers. Capitalism is what has brought people out of extreme poverty. Not govt programs.

Wrong again!

>its the corporatist class (your beloved government getting cozie with big business) which benefited from the US govt "saving the economy."

The Capitalist class wouldn't even exist anymore were it not for the bailout! That's what you fail to understand! The "corporatist" class is just capitalism in the real world. Capitalism and government will always collude because Capitalism relies on a capitalist state to violently enforce private property claims. And what's with all this nonsense about blaming "corporatism" anyway? A minute ago you were singing the praises of Capitalism but suddenly we're corporatist not capitalist!? Which is it!?

u/MrOinkers408 · 2 pointsr/YangForPresidentHQ

Very interesting topic. The economies of Korea and Japan are not the neo liberal free market capitalistic states that the mainstream would like you to believe. I highly recommend reading Ha-Joon Chang’s book bad samaritans, which is basically where my knowledge of how Asian economies like Japan and Korea work https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Samaritans-Secret-History-Capitalism/dp/1596915986

I’ll try to phrase the spirit of your question the best I can, thanks!

u/Dialecticus · 2 pointsr/history

While I respect your position, I profoundly disagree. The Soviet Union was subject to international sanctions, sabotage, attacks, etc. from the beginning of the revolution. And your point about European developments in science and technology does not defeat my earlier points about how the USSR profoundly helped its people escape illiteracy and desperate poverty.

You are mistaken in attributing the economic problems of modern Russia with what the Soviet Union did to it. It was precisely as a result of the collapse of the USSR that life expectancy in Russia [dropped dramatically] (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1116380/), suicide rates spiked, alcoholism (long a problem in Russia) spiked, and the [GDP fell dramatically] (https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/012116/russian-economy-collapse-soviet-union.asp#ixzz584zZqmfu).

> Despite Yeltsin’s reforms, the economy performed horribly through much of the 1990s. From about 1991 to 1998 Russia lost nearly 30% of its real gross domestic product (GDP), suffered numerous bouts of inflation that decimated the savings of Russian citizens. Russians also saw their disposable incomes rapidly decline. Further, capital was leaving the country en masse, with close to $150 billion worth flowing out between 1992 and 1999.

Pensions, worker protections, trade unions, the constitutionally guaranteed right to a job, and other social services provided by those socialist countries and which had improved the quality of life for millions of people were shredded (i.e. privatized).

Lastly, there is good research pointing out that market economies in fact do not help to develop "poor" countries. One such example of this research is Ha Joon-Chang's book "Bad Samaritans "

u/Phokus1983 · 1 pointr/TheRedPill

Nobody said 100% closed trade was ideal. The overwhelming majority of wealthy countries adopted a 3rd way of development economics to get out of poverty. They used tariffs, protectionism, subsidies, etc. to develop their economy at the expense of importers. i.e. the US had tariffs as high as 30-40% during the height of their GDP growth. Japan, for example, had a really shitty auto industry, but their ministry of trade kept bailing out Toyota and imposed import quotas on US car manufacturers until Toyota was finally competent. It's called the infant industry argument.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5-ojv5-b3U

http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Samaritans-Secret-History-Capitalism/dp/1596915986/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1427765176&sr=8-1&keywords=bad+samaritan

u/Shelbyville_Idea · 1 pointr/politics

I don't want to sound like a dick, but you're making assumptions and treating them as fact. There is no reason manufacturing jobs NEED to move overseas other than the top echelons of corporate America want it that way so they can maximize their profits at the expense of American workers. The supposed beauty and inevitability of neoliberal trade policies have been touted for so long by folks like Paul Krugman, that many have just assumed this is the inevitable way of the world. It isn't. This is not to say that free trade between equals in the global community isn't good and sometimes in fact necessary to spur on needed competition and efficiencies. But the idea that the American worker, as well developing economies overseas and their workers, must submit to free trade policies over all other tools of trade policy, such as tariffs, is simply untrue. There needs to be a more healthy mix of free trade and protectionism. Otherwise America and the world community devolves into a feudal system that does much to contribute to unrest, dissatisfaction and even violence all over the world.

The manufacturing jobs exist, they just don't exist in this country as much as they once did. Sure, some of these jobs are being replaced by automation. But free trade globalism and technology do not have to leave American workers or workers overseas ravaged. That happens as a result of political choices made in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere around the world.

Obama and Hillary have employed "incrementalism" in a vain effort to keep workers and others in need placated while they keep their richest donors happy. It doesn't have to be this way and it shouldn't be this way.

We can eliminate and/or redo trade deals. We can let workers have a meaningful seat at the table as these deals are negotiated. We can do much to restore the middle and working classes. That we haven't, again, is in large part a political choice.

Check out these books if you want, or at least know they exist. (https://www.amazon.com/Winner-Take-All-Politics-Washington-Richer-Turned/dp/1416588701)

(https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Samaritans-Secret-History-Capitalism/dp/1596915986)

These authors don't have all the answers, but it's a good start.

u/Phokus · 1 pointr/Economics

Well, i do believe anarchy is the cause of their CURRENT problems. I would usually make a long rant about how poor nations become rich, but i'm going to bed and just suggest reading this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Samaritans-Secret-History-Capitalism/dp/1596915986/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1343627708&sr=8-2&keywords=ha+joon+chang

Hint: Almost every rich country went from being poor to rich because their governments practice protectionism and subsidized their infant industries in various ways (mercantilism, neo-mercantilism, industrial policies, etc.). Examples: US, Most of Europe, Japan, South Korea, and China today.

u/Delet3r · 1 pointr/explainlikeimfive

https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Samaritans-Secret-History-Capitalism/dp/1596915986

Trythis book.

"I don't want to pay more for my shit so some dude in West Virginia can keep a job that's gonna bust his knees out and give him cancer at 55. I don't want a massive invisible tax on the middle class."

So you just consign chinese workers to even worse? Also, if there were more jobs and people had more money, they could AFFORD to pay more.

Here is proof, go back to the 1970s, plenty of families who worked blue collar jobs that supported families on one paycheck. The income gap was smaller than it is today, by far. Now we get cheap junk, but it is junk, and our wages are stagnant. In contrast, my father paid $1000 for a stereo in the 1980s... and could AFFORD it, as a blue collar factory worker.

>We're racing to the bottom because our labor isn't fucking worth anything anymore

You are missing the whole point, its free trade that made labor worth less.

u/electricmice · 1 pointr/Libertarian

no, trade restrictions are there to safeguard budding industries in a rising economy. only when their industry is strong enough to compete in the global economy does it make sense to allow competition from the outside. why allow competition from the outside? because if you don't let them in, they won't let you in. if you really care about whether you are right or not then you should at least read this book and decide for yourself. he proposes a very convincing argument. bad samaritan

the book answers a very important question. why does the western world want everyone to have a free market economy when they did not rise to that position with a free market themselves?


>And that just happened magically based on its geographic location? Hardly.

no it's not the location. it's the reliable english speaking port with english laws that the western world can trust when doing business with. after traveling half way across the world, you want to dump your goods at a reliable place and be on your way. you don't want to deal with bribing the locals and things like that. that requires addition expertise and labor and have much higher risk. your response to me really shows that you have not thought about it thoroughly at all.

also, im not going to ever argue with anyone here again. i don't think i've received a reasonable and well thought out answer yet. basically the responses have been, i'm right and you're wrong. i thought like you guys too in my early 20s. i saw the same videos you did. i didn't do any research at all. as it turns out, persuasion is a skill that is not necessarily related to logic or facts. you should not so readily believe what you see. someone spend 100s of hours crafting that message that you just absorbed in 1 hour. you can't fully understand the message's true nature in 1 hour.

u/fdsa4326 · 1 pointr/The_Donald

Here's 2 books you can read about china fucking everyone over on trade. both on the macro level here

https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Samaritans-Secret-History-Capitalism/dp/1596915986

and the micro level here

https://www.amazon.com/Factory-Man-Furniture-Offshoring-American/dp/031623141X

is it my fault you're a naive fuck who thinks china will abide by these SELF REPORTING bullshit metrics?

u/monorailhero · 1 pointr/politics

As part of these neoliberal free trade agreements, foreign countries are forced to accept into their economies goods made by American corporations, as well as the goods made by other first-world industrialized nations. (You're right, a lot of these goods are not actually made in America, but overseas). I'm getting my information on this from this book.

Anyway, a developing nation many times cannot possibly compete with goods made by large multinational corporations, American or otherwise. Historically, the developed nations used high tariffs on foreign goods to protect their nascent industries. So, for example, when Japan was developing its auto industry, it put high tariffs on American cars so it was not economically feasible to import them, and Japan only allowed as many car imports as were necessary. The first cars Toyota ever produced were fairly terrible, literally falling apart as they came off the assembly lines. But people bought them because the cars were all that was available due to the high tariffs on imports. In time, Toyotas got a lot better, and after number of years became quality cars that are in demand worldwide. But this would have never happened for Toyota had it been forced to compete with foreign imported cars from the beginning. The Japanese would have simply bought American cars because they were better.

Through neoliberal trade deals, we force developing nations to accept the goods of American corporations and don't allow them to put tariffs on them. Many times, these deals deny developing nations access to money from the World Bank and the IMF if they put tariffs on American goods. So, we now deny developing nations the protections we ourselves used to get our own industrial economy off the ground. In this way, we exacerbate and prolong world poverty in the name of short term corporate profits. It's truly sad, because a more developed and industrialized world would do much to alleviate world poverty and unrest.

u/thatshirtisntmine · 1 pointr/TheRedPill

Trumps trade policy is actually smart and dead on.

Free trade is not beneficial to 1st world countries that want to make stuff.
1st world companies cannot compete with a penny an hour labor 3rd world companies that have zero trade restrictions to sell to those 1st world customers. OR multi-nat companies that use 3rd world labor to make stuff to sell to 1st world customers (hint: what do the 1st world people do for work)

That's economics 101. Free trade is as crazy as a 3rd party corporation printing a sovereign government's money then charging that country interest on the "loans" that that 3rd party corporation (federal reserve) lends by printing money to give to the government.

see Ha Joon Changs book- bad Samaritans

http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Samaritans-Secret-History-Capitalism/dp/1596915986/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1462382729&sr=8-1&keywords=Ha+Joon+Changs


About how free trade has always been lies and how good governments have a much stronger role in trade and commerce that we think.

take the red pill of business and economics.


u/Yarddogkodabear · 1 pointr/Libertarian


>The key difference is that the government controls corporations in China instead of the other way around.

that's interesting. I can't speak to the truth of that claim. but there is a lot of Propaganda in the US and Canada that the opposite is true. Corporations in Canada and the US are literally writing laws now. More so in the states. And there is a concerted effort my right wing media to promote this as a good thing.

>The whole concept centers around getting some people to become super rich first to act as the engine for economic growth

That sounds like the route that south Korea took in the 70's and 80's. This book talks about it.



http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Samaritans-Secret-History-Capitalism/dp/1596915986/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1321403002&sr=1-2

Have you heard about this?

u/mbsyl · 1 pointr/explainlikeimfive

south korea didn't fall victim to the free market bullshit that america forced on developing countries to exploit them. they understand that you need big govt for big projects, and the internet is a big project. here in america we are content to let ISPs have total control because we actually started to believe the shit we sold to developing countries.
http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Samaritans-Secret-History-Capitalism/dp/1596915986 <written by a south korean about this issue

u/JakOswald · 1 pointr/politics

I think you and I aren't going to see eye-to-eye here on these subjects. We both agree that these jobs are going to be automated, so I'm perfectly happy having these jobs that will eventually go away stay here for the interim. At least this way, folks have jobs before automation eventually removes them. Without a strong safety-net and public welfare system offshoring the jobs effectively creates the situation now that automation eventually will. And we're no where near ready as a society mentally and politically to deal with the fallout of automation.

As for tariffs, those have a long and sordid history. According to Ha-Joon Chang the countries that are doing well now, European countries, US, Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan, and others got that way by using tariffs to their advantage. They keep tariffs high in certain sectors so that their budding companies and industries could flourish internally until they were ready to compete globally. So tariffs and free trade aren't necessarily as clear cut as "free-trade good, tariffs bad". If you have something you would like me to check out, send a link, I'd like to read more on the subject.

u/fdsa4327 · 1 pointr/politics

>theory

its a spherical cow that does not exist in reality

> free-er trade

weasel word that can mean anything at all

again, we can see the booms in japan, korea and the asian tiger economies for very clear examples of domestic protectionism that has had resounding successes.

as well as china, which has had the largest economic boom in human history and totally cheated on trade via currency pegging and unfair trade tactics

maybe you should read a book about it

I assume you are simply uneducated on these fact

https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Samaritans-Secret-History-Capitalism/dp/1596915986

u/ColHaberdasher · 0 pointsr/Detroit

> Ok there, buckaroo. Whatever you say.

So you admit you fail to understand basic US history because you have a poor education. Got it.

> How do you explain the increases in standard of living over time otherwise?

In what country, specifically? Read about the history of liberal democratic governments's roles in fostering mixed-market economies. Some increases in wealth of some countries began with pillaging during colonialism, surplus wealth generated through chattel slavery that spurred the industrial revolution, the rise of selective state interventions in certain sectors ie infant industries, the mid-20th century mixed market, etc.

You don't have an answer.

> Non-dominant firms have, and do, consistently accumulate capital because every consumer has different needs.

Your claim that people who have money should dictate how public funds are spent is essentially advocating oligarchy. You're ignorant of basic political economic concepts.

> advantageous allocation of capital?

"Advantageous allocation of capital" is a meaningless phrase. There are man factors that account for certain countries' rise in wealth - it certainly isn't a result of oligarchies, as you advocate. Again, you're too ignorant and uneducated to even begin to grasp the actual, objective history of developed, modern, mixed-market systems.

> Peasants going to hate.

Bigoted Grosse Pointers gonna deny basic history. I thought GP valued education?

> I'll admit that I am no anachro-capitalist

Which is basically you admitting that you neither understand basic political theory nor basic economic history. You're free to believe whatever ignorant strain of thought you choose, but you're yet incapable of defending or backing it up.

> You've been having a lot of trouble with this concept

Why are you incapable of understanding fundamentals of rights theory? Is it because you've never studied basic US history or political theory? Because you have no God-given right to own a gun. Again, you live in a toothless, poor-informed fantasyland. Can't argue with the wilfully uninformed.

> I am not the one calling for poll tests over there,

You're contriving fabricated strawmen because you're too cowardly to argue in good faith? Got it. Logic fails you.

> They didn't go to the moon, I don't care.

You're ignorant of basic geography and history and you're proud.

You sound like a classic anarcho-capitalist: ignorant of basic history and world affairs, too lazy to read, too childish to care. Your education has failed you.

u/fifteencat · -2 pointsr/Economics

Haiti, Africa, Latin America. These are capitalist countries. And more free market than most (not that true free markets actually exist anywhere).

Many of the countries that have moved from poverty to prosperity did it with capitalism, but they did it with a highly regulated capitalism with large amounts of government regulation. S Korea, Japan, Great Britain, the United States. What then happens is when a country becomes rich with government intervention they then find it is advantageous to deny government intervention to others. They reach the pinnacle. They then kick away the ladder for potential competitors.

Ha Joon Chang's "Bad Samaritans" is a good primer on this.

u/Timdudeq · -5 pointsr/worldnews

Comparative advantage is only fair between similarly mature economies/countries or else the stronger country can abuse the power difference.

See Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism for more.