Ha-Joon Chang Quotes

The historical debate is over. The answer is free-market capitalism.

A market economy is a tool—a valuable and effective tool—for organizing productive activity. A market society is a way of life in which market values sweep into every aspect of human endeavor. It is a place where social relations are made over in the image of the market.

For in the theoretical field bourgeois economics no longer engages in blithe and joyous fights.

The unfettered free market has been the most radically disruptive force in American life in the last generation.

Nobody believes in completely unadulterated capitalism.

In hip-hop, as in neoliberalism, economics bullied politics out of the picture.

To me, economics doesn't need to be political.

The only place you see a free market is in the speeches of politicians.

I think that there is absolutely no free market in modern industrial states.

The basic law of capitalism is you or I, not both you and I.

There's a difference between a free market and free-for-all market.

I do believe in the free market.

Market fundamentalists recognize that the role of the state in the economy is always disruptive, inefficient, and generally has negative connotations. This leads them to believe that the market mechanism can take care of all the problems.

There is no pure free-market economy.

Instead of ideological objectives of a political nature, today we are faced with ideological objectives of economic nature.

No one has characterized market mechanisms better than Friedrich von Hayek.

Establishment of a market economy is seen as mostly involving destruction.

I’m a big fan of the free market system but the free market system works [only] when you have robust competition.

They say that open markets are the solution to everything and, if left alone, the invisible hand will solve all problems. Sadly, the reason the invisible hand often appears invisible is that, quite often, it is not there.

It [industrial capitalism] came to be believed in as a gospel, ... from which it was regarded as little short of immoral to depart.

Competition—ruthless, unforgiving, to-the-death competition—is a crucial feature of capitalism.

Capitalism is not simply mass production, but mass production to satisfy the needs of the masses.

The free enterprise system does not leave people behind.

We need to move back toward a free market.

That's the trick of free market economic theory: it doesn't just ask you to only be selfish and not care about others. It tells you that by being selfish, you are helping others. And, in fact, by trying to directly help others, you will hurt them.