Kicking Away The Ladder Summary

The reading, “Kicking Away the Ladder: Neoliberalism and the Real History of Capitalism” by Chang Ha-Joon explains about how countries developed. In addition, Ha-joon’s article compares todays countries with past countries and discusses strategies that can help the future develop. An example of countries comparison is “United States was at a level of economic development similar to the of today’s Mexico” (Kicking Away the Ladder, 6). Similarly, Philip McMichael’s article “Development Project” discusses about countries development. It focuses on the Development Project, where countries are independent states. In addition, McMichael’s article covers national economic growth as the international framework for many countries development: “the pursuit of national economic growth depended on international relations, both material and political-legal” (Development Project, 56). Moving on, both articles perspective on countries development is through globalization: interaction with other countries. McMichael’s article covers many topics, but important topics are international relations, open world economy, and foreign aids. International relations focus on “material and political-legal” (Development Project, 56). This means that countries trade with each other …show more content…
Tariffs are taxes or duties that are required to import or export goods. For instance, “Germany, Japan, and Korea are well known” to use tariffs to develop their economy (Kicking Away the Ladder, 45). Protectionism is a concern topic since it main focus is to tax imports in hope to prevent domestic businesses from foreign countries: “the USA was also the intellectual home of protectionism” (Kicking Away the Ladder, 45). Lastly, developing countries has double-standard. This means that wealthy countries will preach one perspective, but when things become problematic the countries will impose policies that contradict what they