Bad Samaritans
A radical look by a leading economist at the issues surrounding globalization...It's rare that a book appears with a fresh perspective on world affairs, but renowned economist Ha-Joon Chang has some startlingly original things to say about the future of globalization. In theory, he argues, the world's wealthiest countries and supra-national institutions like the IMF, World Bank and WTO want to see all nations developing into modern industrial societies. In practice, though, those at the top are 'kicking away the ladder' to wealth that they themselves climbed. Why? Self-interest certainly plays a part. But, more often, rich and powerful governments and institutions are actually being 'Bad Samaritans': their intentions are worthy but their simplistic free-market ideology and poor understanding of history leads them to inflict policy errors on others. Chang demonstrates this by contrasting the route to success of economically vibrant countries with the very different route now being dictated to the world's poorer nations. In the course of this, he shows just how muddled the thinking is in such key areas as trade and foreign investment. He shows that the case for privatisation and against state involvement is far from proven. And he explores the ways in which attitudes to national cultures and political ideologies are obscuring clear thinking and creating bad policy. Finally, he argues the case for new strategies for a more prosperous world that may appall the 'Bad Samaritans'.
Stats for nerds
22recommend
46mentions
34people
2011–2026years
67% recommend33% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Samaritans:_The_Myth_of_...
This is a good read related to this topic.
- >When a govt imposes trade tarriffs, it's effectively taxing it's own citizens
The Econ 101 way to look at it. In the real world, it also promotes domestic production, creating jobs and often helping "nascent industries", and in many cases ultimately leading to even lower prices over the long term as domestic industry matures. This is how basically every advanced economy industrialized. See the work of South Korean economist, Ha-Joon Chang.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1032019.Bad_Samaritans
>people want to use the platforms they enjoy using, because they're all free anyway
Agree with the first part, but one's attention is hardly "free". It is, in fact, the ultimate opportunity cost when squandered on these services.
- This is a laughable hypothetical with no basis in all of economic history. Every industrialized economy achieved their manufacturing prowess and prosperity through protectionism. It's unfortunate how few people recognize that, but then most people don't get beyond Econ 101 thinking. It's worse than if they had not learned any economics at all.
- It already is having a big impact. Even in California they cannot find any qualifying (under the new rules) inventory available by year end, which means those people who need a new car and were counting on offsetting their federal tax burden from this year are screwed. I’m actually a fan of industrial policy (check out the book Bad Samaritans), and would generally tell the WTO to stuff it, but this was designed extremely poorly.
- https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1032019.Bad_Samaritans
This is a good book that goes through how economies develop and the role of State Owned/sponsored Enterprises are helpful in developing a nation's technology competencies. The author uses South Korea as a few of his examples, too.
- If we narrowly pursued our comparative advantage without government investing in tech all along we'd be just trading in furs and stuff.
We did just like China starting out, rather than be stuck undeveloped, enslaved to comparative advantage, we stole trade secrets from the more powerful nation, heavily subsidized R&D, and education (as you point out as a good thing), etc. See for instance "Slater the Traitor" as the British knew him:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Slater
If the WTO existed back then we might have gotten invaded and blockaded over it.
All the Asian tiger countries avoided almost all of our free trade advice and did heavily protectionist policies in order to achieve their rapid development. Most of the countries that bought into it remained third world, pursuing their comparative advantage as an undeveloped nation against developed ones, which seems to basically be shorthand for having their natural resources looted.
The book Bad Samaritans goes into how that development occurred in S. Korea, and other similar countries that successfully broke out of the comparative advantage trap:
