About the author
South Korean economist (b. 1963), professor at SOAS University of London and a leading heterodox voice on development and industrial policy. Through Kicking Away the Ladder, Bad Samaritans, and 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism, Chang became one of the most widely read critics of free-market development orthodoxy.
Synopsis
Drawing on economic history, Chang documents the extensive use of protective tariffs, industrial subsidies, and state direction by Britain, the US, and other now-rich nations during their own development. He argues that the policies the rich world and institutions like the IMF and WTO now forbid to developing countries are precisely those that built the wealthy economies, and calls for poorer nations to be allowed the activist, infant-industry policies that history shows actually work.
Core passage idea
Paraphrase · Modern copyrighted workChang argues that today's rich countries developed through protection and state intervention, not free trade — and that by pressing poor countries to liberalize, they 'kick away the ladder' they themselves climbed.
By recovering the protectionist history of the wealthy economies, Chang exposes a double standard in development policy and reframes the state as the engine of industrialization. It is the leading historical case against free-trade orthodoxy and for the developmental state.
To avoid a bubble
Pair with free-trade economists (and The Rational Optimist) who argue that openness and markets, not protection, drive lasting growth, and that Chang overstates the role of the state and understates the costs of protectionism.
Reading note
Accessible and historically grounded. Read it as the heterodox case for the developmental state, against free-trade orthodoxy and alongside Stiglitz and List, and weigh it against market-liberal critics.
Best paired with
Joseph E. Stiglitz, Globalization and Its Discontents; Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, Why Nations Fail.