Ha-Joon Chang Quotes

I've made it very clear that the government should get out of the business of trying to affect the markets, of trying to pick winners and losers.

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

There's not a single country that actually approaches economics in a pure, free market, capitalist way. I like the free market - but it very much exists only in textbooks. If I had a choice, and we could live in a very pure world, I would be a supporter of the free markets.

There are some who maintain that trade will regulate itself, and it is not to be benefited by the encouragements or restraints of government. Such persons will imagine that there is no need of a common directing power. This is one of those wild speculative paradoxes, which have grown into credit among us, contrary to the uniform practice and sense of the most enlightened nations.

It is impossible to objectively define how free a market is. This is a political definition. Government is always involved, and those free marketers are as politically motivated as anyone.

It should not be the government running the economy.

Markets that don't work we're going to step away from.

When the government gets involved in pricing, I don't think it's the right way to look at a business.

There is no pure free-market economy.

Many markets work best with little or no outside interference. But others - especially those subject to big 'externalities' - need a helping hand.

The doctrine of state ownership of land … is the exact opposite of the regime of free trade. The doctrine of state ownership should not be allowed to prevail ...

I believe in markets before mandates.

We want free markets, but the markets are not going to take care of themselves in all cases.

Competition does a much more effective job than government at protecting consumers.

The free market is not a god; we have to do everything we can to make the market competitive.

We want a free market, but we know that the paradox of a 'free' market is that sometimes you have to intervene. You have to make sure it's not the law of the jungle but the laws of democracy that works.

State interference in economic life, which calls itself economic policy, has done nothing but destroy economic life. Prohibitions and regulations have by their general obstructive tendency fostered the growth of the spirit of wastefulness.

When laissez-faire creates instability, the move to a freer market can be something less than pure gain.

Let's face a historical truth: we have never had a "free market", we have always had government intervention in the economy, and indeed that intervention has been welcomed by the captains of finance and industry. They had no quarrel with "big government" when it served their needs.

The minute you hear subsidies, I don't care what, if it's health care, buying cars, the minute you hear subsidies, you have to understand, whatever's going on here, it isn't market forces.

I'm not an expert in it, but it seems to me that you have to let the market forces go their course.

The argument for collectivism is simple; free market is not.

I think almost every economist would agree that government gets itself in trouble when it tries to interfere with voluntary behavior.

The free market punishes irresponsibility. Government rewards it.

All depressions are caused by government interference and the cure is always offered to take more of the poison that caused the disaster. Depressions are not the result of a free economy.