Ha-Joon Chang is a leading economist whose recent book 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism has been attracting rave reviews for deconstructing some commonly held myths about free markets and the world we live in.

Economics is generally considered a dry subject, but Chang has a gift in explaining its concepts in a way even a layperson can easily understand. "You accept that econ-omics is for experts," he tells Weekend Review. "As a humble journalist or dentist, what do I know about economics? Let them deal with it. No, that is not true. You have to challenge these people because they operate with very particular assumptions. They very often get their facts wrong and the advice they give on that basis is not necessarily going to be correct."

High-profile admirers

I interview the professor in his office at the University of Cambridge. This is a man with some very high-profile admirers, including Bob Geldof and Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa. Last year, an editorial in the left-leaning Guardian newspaper paid a gushing tribute to Chang and went so far as to advise Labour party leader Ed Miliband to "take this man to lunch". But he has even won over figures on the right, such as Martin Wolf of the Financial Times, who has heaped praise on Chang, describing him as "probably the world's most effective critic of globalisation".

Another prominent fan is Noam Chomsky, whose name makes Chang blush. "Well, I am Chomsky's fan," he says. "He is a great thinker. I was very deeply influenced by his writing on international politics since way back when I read him as a university student in the 1980s. I think it is a wrong way to put it — I am his fan rather than he being mine."

Born in South Korea in 1963, he tells me that as a child he wanted to be a scientist. But as Chang grew older, his career plans changed as he became increasingly fascinated with real-world issues. Then in high school he learnt Ricardo's famous theory of comparative advantage and so began his love affair with economics. "It is somewhat ironic because these days I spend a lot of time telling people why Ricardo's theory is insufficient as a guide to economic development," he says. "I mean there is nothing wrong with it. It's a very precisely defined theory."

The 1970s were a time when a lot of social changes were happening in South Korea. Chang found economics a useful tool to understanding all the development shaping the country. His observations on what he saw happening around him probably laid the foundation of his deep suspicions towards free markets which so heavily influenced his work later. "I read all these economists saying that South Korea developed because of the free market," he says. "You know, you can only laugh, because if you lived there, you would know how much government control there was, how powerful the government was in influencing the decisions of private-sector companies. Then you naturally ask that if these people say that only a free market can develop an economy, how come Korea developed so quickly."

In 1986 he moved to the United Kingdom as a graduate student at the University of Cambridge. He followed it up with a PhD and has been teaching at the university's Faculty of Economics since 1990. Chang has authored a number of well-received books, notably Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective and Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism. In his works, one of the most powerful arguments he makes is that many Western countries which are great advocates of free trade, the kind evangelised by the World Bank and the IMF, themselves developed on the back of protectionist tariffs and subsidies. Now they are attempting to "kick away the ladder" from developing countries by way of preventing them from adopting those same policies and institutions they once used to reach the top. Take the example of the United States, which for about a century, until the Second World War, was actually the most protectionist country in the world. Today it preaches free markets to other countries while itself using state intervention when needed.

In his latest book, 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism, Chang runs through a similar list of myths about capitalism and the free market. For example, he takes up the case of underdevelopment in Africa. Many are unaware that in the 1960s and the 1970s, the continent actually had a decent growth performance. The real cause of stagnation, Chang argues, is not its climate or ethnic divisions, as certain ill-informed analysts claim. These factors can be found in many rich countries as well. The real reason for the economic backwardness of the continent lies in the free market and the trade policies it has been forced to implement over the past three decades. Since the late 1970s, the World Bank and the IMF have introduced programmes which have made countries adopt steps that have led to the collapse of their local industries.

Another myth, and it is a bit quirky, mind you, is his claim in the book that the washing machine has changed the world more than the internet. Finding this hard to believe, I ask Chang that if he were given a choice to spend a month without either the internet or the washing machine, which he would pick. "I'd certainly throw away the internet," he replies without hesitation.

But what about getting all his important e-mails? "You can write letters," he says. Yes, but who would bother to write letters? "Yeah, of course, these days I get a lot more of these e-mails and so on," he laughs. "But it is not like there was nothing before the internet. There was the fax machine. There was the telephone. There were letters. So if I have to give one up, I would definitely give up the internet."

Chang doubts the internet is the revolutionary technology many think it is. While it has certainly transformed how people spend their out-of-work hours, whiling away time on Facebook and electronic gaming, and has improved information access, in terms of a rise in productivity, the evidence isn't that strong. In comparison, Chang argues the washing machine and other house appliances — alongside electricity, piped water and gas — have saved a lot of time and made it possible for women to join the labour market.

Of course, like any theory, one could find loopholes in his work. For example, Chang is a prominent advocate of the "infant industry argument". According to this theory, nascent industries in developing countries need to be protected by tariffs and other means from foreign competition — this is the strategy many rich countries used as well when they were in their initial stages of growth. But his argument could be turned around, I point out to Chang. So, for example, poor countries could twist the same rationale to say child labour shouldn't be outlawed, as Europe and America also tolerated it when they were developing.

"That question is really good," Chang replies. "If you have the political will, child labour can be abolished at a relatively low level of development. Take the case of South Korea. That is one thing I am really proud of about my country. In the 1960s, it had per capita income that was half that of the Philippines and lower then Ghana. It was one of the poorest countries. But it still abolished child labour under the age of 12 because it introduced compulsory primary education. Parents would actually go to prison if they didn't send their children to school."

However, he acknowledges this may be difficult to organise politically and a pragmatic compromise might have to be made. "Even then, you could use a lot of regulations to control how these children work," he says. "So you could make it compulsory that these employers also provide some funding for their school attendance or things like that. And then you could have a closer inspection of the working conditions which make the lives of these children more bearable."

Yet the big question is how the various myths about capitalism Chang lays out in his book have managed to become so widespread? The answer lies with the media, of course, which has played a pivotal role in promoting such views — often quite unintentionally. "The problem is that economics has been presented as something very technical," Chang says. "Things that no one can really understand. Therefore, even when the media and the general public had doubts about this economic orthodoxy, they felt unqualified to challenge them." He likens the public's acceptance of free-market capitalism to the film The Matrix, where the characters live inside a brainwashed reality.

But while many media outlets have spread these myths unintentionally, alarmingly others have willingly taken the plunge into the murky waters of the free market. The Economist is perhaps the most famous publication which comes to mind. I ask Chang what he thinks about the magazine's take on the subject.

"The Economist magazine is very ideologically driven," he explains. "It has a long history and reputation for being a free magazine publication. But actually if you read The Economist of the 1960s and 1970s, which I did for some research purpose, it wasn't actually that ideological. After all, it is a business magazine and it should tell people how these economies work. But from the 1980s, for various reasons it has become very ideological. I mean it is still quite pragmatic in the business section but in the beginning opinions section, it has become very ideological."

What exactly does he mean by "ideological"? "Well, ideological in the sense that you believe there is one particular truth," Chang explains. "That there is one particularly correct theory and then you try to judge everything from that point of view. I mean something like religious fundamentalism. So since we live in this economic theory which says everyone is rational, whatever outcome the market produces must be rational because that has to be true — that kind of attitude. I mean, of course, they do it a lot more sophisticatedly but that is essentially what it boils down to.

"But when people point out that they actually didn't practise free market, they come back and say no they developed despite all this protectionism and government intervention."

The middle path

With the recent financial crisis and the widespread damage it has created, I ask Chang if his book is a call for an economic revolution? "Depends on what you mean by revolution," he says. What I mean, I explain, is things can't go on the way they are. "Absolutely," he says.

"It calls for a revolution in our thinking. I am not sure if it calls for a revolution in our actions. Because as you can see from the book, I sometimes make some radical suggestions but on the whole am a quite pragmatic, middle-of-the-road kind of guy. I don't believe in revolution. Look at the Soviet Union and the past 30 years of free market experimentation that was based on this idea that you can change everything and everything will be better. I don't believe in this. "

Yet some may question Chang's pragmatic approach. Take the example of communism, I tell him. In the past, people who defended it as a system argued that communist countries were not following the right kind of communism, which is why they were failing. Does he ever see capitalism collapsing in the way communism had done?

"Well, I don't know about that," he says, laughing. "As I say in the book, I still think that capitalism is the best economic system we have. I mean, my problem is that there are many different ways to run capitalism. But in the past three decades of free-market ideology, we have been told there is only one correct way to run capitalism and that is American-style free-market capitalism."

But Chang insists he remains an optimist. "I mean, 500 years ago the Europeans were burning people for saying the Earth goes around the Sun," he says. "Two hundred years ago, people thought it was impractical to abolish slavery in the US; 100 years ago they put women in prison for asking for votes; 20 years ago Mrs Thatcher famously said that anyone who believes there will be black majority rule in South Africa is living in cloud cuckoo land. These things have all come true. So while I do not believe in the revolutionary process, the ultimate goal has to be revolutionary."

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