Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective cover
Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective
by Ha-Joon Chang
ISBN: 1843310279
Buy on Amazon
Found in 7 comments on Hacker News
cma · 2025-10-14 · Original thread
Yeah Asian tigers mostly didn't follow the narrow comparative advantage guidance and instead did state protection of industry to develop it: https://www.amazon.com/Kicking-Away-Ladder-Development-Persp...

The US did the same when it was young, along with large instances of exfiltrating tech (Samuel Slater, kicked off the American industrial revolution).

cma · 2022-12-13 · Original thread
A different take: https://www.amazon.com/Kicking-Away-Ladder-Development-Persp...
rhizome · 2017-07-16 · Original thread
Was Zuck taking some Business & Econ classes in his school days? This is from 2002:

https://www.amazon.com/Kicking-Away-Ladder-Development-Persp...

js8 · 2017-05-29 · Original thread
And it's not a new thesis, it has been noticed by various intellectuals at least for last 200 years.

Another relatively recent book on this topic: https://www.amazon.com/Kicking-Away-Ladder-Development-Persp...

ksk · 2016-06-02 · Original thread
Well put, then there's historical facts of countries using protectionism to make themselves developed.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1843310279

ksk · 2016-05-25 · Original thread
>The benefits of open and free markets are obvious.

All "developed" countries were heavily protectionist in their formative years. Only now that they have some economic power in the world, they're trying to impose asymmetrical "free trade" agreements on nations which are not developed and force them to abandon protectionism. These are just the facts.

>I think you're overplaying the perceived benefit of protectionism.

Sorry to burst your bubble.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1843310279

js8 · 2016-01-29 · Original thread
> Maybe it improved the life of many more Chinese than it did worsen that of people from the rest of the world

And maybe not. China is not exactly a free trade zone. There was a book written about it: http://www.amazon.com/Kicking-Away-Ladder-Development-Perspe...