Posts tagged “Ha-Joon Chang”
If voting changed anything they’d abolish it
I’m really enjoying Ha-Joon Chang’s Bad samaritans: the myth of free trade and the secret history of capitalism. In a chapter discussing some serious tension between free markets and democracy, he discusses typical neoliberal policies and how they actually undermine democracy. He’s talking about developing countries and writing from 2008, but I’d argue that neoliberalism […]
Patents can be beneficial, but are often harmful
One obvious problem [of patents] is that patents, by definition, create monopolies, which impose costs on the rest of society. For example, the patentee could use its technological monopoly to exploit the consumers… But it is not just the problem of income distribution between the patentee and the consumers. Monopoly also creates net social loss […]
Doing state-owned enterprises right
Enterprises in industries that are natural monopolies, industries that involve large investment and high risk and enterprises that provide essential services should be kept as SOEs [state-owned enterprises], unless the government has very high tax-raising and/or regulatory capabilities. … Privatizing politically important enterprises on the basis of dispersed share sales is unlikely to resolve the […]