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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 Chang

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The Higher Education System

Ha-Joon Chang

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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.

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95 Percent Of Economics Is Common Sense Made Complicated, And Even For The Remaining 5 Percent, The Essential Reasoning, If Not All The Technical Details, Can Be Explained In Plain Terms.

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.

People Who Live In Poor Countries Have To Be Entrepreneurial Even Just To Survive.

History Is On The Side Of The Regulators.

Culture Changes With Economic Development.

Corruption Often Exists Because There Are Too Many Market Forces, Not Too Few.

People 'over-produce' Pollution Because They Are Not Paying For The Costs Of Dealing With It.

Environmental Pollution

If We Are Really Serious About Preventing Another Crisis Like The 2008 Meltdown We Should Simply Ban Complex Financial Instruments, Unless They Can Be Unambiguously Shown To Benefit Society In The Long Run. This Is What We Do All The Time With Other Products-drugs, Cars, Electrical Products And Many Others.

The Free Market Doesn't Exist. Every Market Has Some Rules And Boundaries That Restrict Freedom Of Choice. A Market Looks Free Only Because We So Unconditionally Accept Its Underlying Restrictions That We Fail To See Them.

Rational Thinking Is An Important Aspect Of Human Nature, But We Have Imagination, We Have Ambition, We Have Irrational Fear, We Are Swayed By Other People, We Get Indoctrinated And We Get Influenced By Advertising.

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.

In Manufacturing, Where Mechanization And The Use Of Chemical Processes Are Much Easier, It Is Easier To Raise Productivity Than In Services. In Contrast, By Their Very Nature, Many Service Activities Are Inherently Impervious To Productivity Increase Without Diluting The Quality Of The Product.

Equality Of Opportunity Is Meaningless For Those Who Do Not Have The Capabilities To Take Advantage Of It.

Financial Markets Need To Become Less, Not More, Efficient.

Financial Markets

Democracy And Markets Are Both Fundamental Building Blocks For A Decent Society. But They Clash At A Fundamental Level. We Need To Balance Them.

Corruption Exists Because There Is Too Much, Not Too Little, Market.

Manufacturing Is The Most Important...route To Prosperity.

95% Of Economics Is Common Sense Deliberately Made Complicated.

It Takes Time And Experience To Absorb New Technologies, So Technologically Backward Producers Need A Period Of Protection From International Competition During This Period Of Learning. Such Protection Is Costly, Because The Country Is Giving Up The Chance To Import Better And Cheaper Products. However, It Is A Price That Has To Be Paid If It Wants To Develop Advanced Industries.

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Between The Great Depression And The 1970s, Private Business Was Viewed With Suspicion Even In Most Capitalist Economies. Businesses Were, So The Story Goes, Seen As Anti-social Agents Whose Profit-seeking Needed To Be Restrained For Other, Supposedly Loftier, Goals, Such As Justice, Social Harmony, Protection Of The Weak And Even National Glory.

Capitalist Economy

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The Foundation Of Economic Development Is The Acquisition Of More Productive Knowledge.

The Best Way To Boost The Economy Is To Redistribute Wealth Downward, As Poorer People Tend To Spend A Higher Proportion Of Their Income.

Making Rich People Richer Doesn't Make The Rest Of Us Richer.

The Washing Machine Changed The World More Than The Internet.

Low Inflation And Government Prudence May Be Harmful For Economic Development.

Above A Certain Level Of Income, The Relative Value Of Material Consumption Vis-a-vis Leisure Time Is Diminished, So Earning A Higher Income At The Cost Of Working Longer Hours May Reduce The Quality Of Your Life. More Importantly, The Fact That The Citizens Of A Country Work Longer Than Others In Comparable Countries Does Not Necessarily Mean That They Like Working Longer Hours. They May Be Compelled To Work Long Hours, Even If They Actually Want To Take Longer Holidays.

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Important Events

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Rich Countries Have 'kicked Away The Ladder' By Forcing Free-market, Free-trade Policies On Poor Countries. Already Established Countries Do Not Want More Competitors Emerging Through The Nationalistic Policies They Themselves Successfully Used In The Past.

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Assume The Worst About People And You Get The Worst.

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