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Taiwan's Economy and the Myth of Free Market

Taipei skyline (Photo by CEphoto, Uwe Aranas via Wikimedia Commons )   In a world dominated by  neoliberal  mainstream economic thinking, the wealth of nations is often explained in culturalist terms. A country is rich because its people are hard-working and enjoy the freedom to pursue profitable economic activities. A country is poor if its people are lazy and / or its politicians are corrupt and inefficient. However, it would be wrong to underestimate the role of the government in promoting economic development, especially in the case of Taiwan. First of all, an industrial revolution does not come about through hard work alone. Asian people have always been renowned for their laboriousness, but for a long time their industry lagged behind that of the West. A rural country whose people are mostly hard-working peasants does not automatically shift production from agriculture to industry. Economists  Ha-Joon Chang  and  Erik Reinert  have explained that rich countries di