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Comment by seagullz | Hacker News Reader

In fact you didn't really have to look up to China to show that. Reading up the first dozen or so pages of "Bad Samaritans" by Cambridge economist Ha-Joon Chang would reveal how South Korea is a fairly contemporary counterexample to the (largely mythical) official narrative; also worth taking a look at his paper "Kicking away the ladder: the "real" history of free trade"[0].

[0] http://www.personal.ceu.hu/corliss/CDST_Course_Site/Readings...

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but the reason South Korea (like China) progressed so rapidly is because it was a fairly authoritarian state until recently. They benefited from that and US investment, and then liberalized after they were a small powerhouse.

Some argue that China will do the same thing, but it's just as likely the elites continue to hoard most of the benefits of this development and it stays closed off. Trading personal freedoms for economic development is temping and very scary because it's tempting.

Generally speaking, the dichotomy involving "personal freedom" vs. "economic development" does not have to be inevitable if the political consciousness and the relevant constructive action on the part of the people concerned is there. So what ends up happening in China or elsewhere depends on the choices made there, though as outsiders we can speculate.

Ha-joon Chang was not advocating to trade personal freedom for economic development; he was explaining what really transpired, contrary to the official narrative on economic development.

Ok, understood. Disagree that there is an "official narrative" about free trade/economic development (we never got a copy of that at my school), nor that a focus on free trade alone accounts for what's happened there.

It does look like an interesting paper. Thanks.

To most Chinese people, it's not really viewed as "trading personal freedoms" for "economic development". It's more viewed as "trading personal freedoms" for a "better quality of life".

Most people won't complain about personal freedoms as long as their QOL is improving rapidly.

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