Who Is The Professor Ha-Joon Chang's Bad Samaritans?

The author of the book, professor Ha-Joon Chang, is not a globalization critic, however, all along the book he points out the harmful policies driving globalization. He takes a historical approach to answer the question of how less developed and poor countries became rich. Chang believes that international trade is essential in order to achieve economic development. Nevertheless, he admits many neo-liberal economic policies are not only hypocritical but also damaging to developing nations.

The main thesis to highlight in Bad Samaritans is that neo-liberal policies do not particularly help developing countries, and instead favor the rich ones. According to Chang, the developed West promotes laissez-faire and free-trade policies even though they actually follow protectionist strategies. He enumerates all the negative consequences on developing countries for example less freedom of choice, the inability to protect their “infant industries”, and the external regulation on their finances. International institutions forced less developed countries to adopt free-trade policies, which has “kicked away
He is simply explaining the current international development situation, how the market really works, and presents the root causes through real examples. From my point of view he gives the reader an honest perspective. His main interests are to emphasize the huge imbalances and to work towards the economic development of less developed countries. However, he firmly believes in the power of capitalism. I agree with Chang`s argument, “International economic development is driven by those with power”. In order words, the economy is dominated by the strongest economic powers such as Western Europe and the US. It might sound harsh but it is how the world works and it will continue to be like that. I think any attempt at trying to change this would only be a utopian