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Countries are poor not because their people are lazy; their people are 'lazy' because they are poor.

— Ha-Joon Chang Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008)

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Poverty

More quotes by Ha-Joon Chang

Trade is simply too important for economic development to be left to free trade economists.

Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008)

The foundation of economic development is the acquisition of more productive knowledge.

Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008)

We are not smart enough to leave things to the market.

Corruption exists because there is too much, not too little, market.

Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008)

Are you still convinced that inflation is incompatible with economic success?

Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008)

All Ha-Joon Chang quotes →

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We spend our lives fighting to get people very slightly more stupid than ourselves to accept truths that the great men have always known.

Doris Lessing The Golden Notebook (1962)

It is better to be poor and walk in integrity than to be stupid and speak lies.

Solomon

If a poor person envies a rich person, he is no better than the rich person.

Leo Tolstoy

The poor, by thinking unceasingly of money, reach the point of losing the spiritual advantages of non-possession, thereby sinking as low as the rich.

Emil Cioran The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Ha-Joon Chang (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.