Busboys and Poets
Mar 12, 2009
(GMT-5)
Host:
RESULTS Educational Fund, Jubilee USA and ActionAid USA
Audio
Ha-Joon Chang, University of Cambridge Professor and CEPR Senior Research Associate discussed his book, Bad Samaritans – The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism, newly available in paperback.
In recent years, “free trade” has become an end in itself, often without regard to the economic and social consequences of the indiscriminate removal of trade barriers or even international investment flows. But the current world economic recession, along with the failure of the Doha round of WTO negotiations, has spurred some re-thinking of these issues among economists and policy makers.
In his book, Bad Samaritans, Cambridge economist Ha-Joon Chang argues that, by recommending to (or even forcing upon) developing countries the free-trade, free market policies that they themselves never used when they were developing the rich countries that have reached the top are 'kicking away the ladder' to wealth that they themselves climbed.
This event was co-sponsored by RESULTS Educational Fund, Jubilee USA and ActionAid USA.
