Kicking Away the Ladder

Have you ever wondered why some countries are rich and others remain poor—despite seemingly following the same economic advice? In Kicking Away the Ladder, economist Ha-Joon Chang turns this question into a historical investigation and a moral challenge. He argues that the world’s richest nations did not become wealthy by practicing the open trade, privatization, and deregulation they now preach to developing countries. Instead, they achieved prosperity through protectionism, state intervention, and deliberately nurturing their own industries—strategies they now deny to others.

Chang’s central argument is simple but explosive: rich countries are effectively kicking away the ladder of economic development. They climbed to prosperity using state-led industrial policies and flexible institutions but now force developing nations to adopt supposedly “good policies” and “good governance”—policies that the rich themselves ignored during their rise. The result, he contends, is a global double standard that stifles poorer countries’ ability to develop.

Why This Question Still Matters

Today’s international economic order—shaped by the IMF, World Bank, and WTO—pressures developing countries to open their markets, reduce tariffs, and adopt Western-style financial and legal systems. These terms are justified through what Chang calls the Washington Consensus, a set of neoliberal principles promoting free trade and minimal government interference. But, Chang asks, if these policies truly lead to growth, why did they fail to produce prosperity for many developing regions—while helping none of the now-rich countries in their own histories?

Instead of remaining abstract, Chang dives deep into economic history, showing that from eighteenth-century Britain to twentieth-century America, nearly every successful economy relied on aggressive protectionism and industrial policy. His analysis covers Europe’s main powers, East Asia’s latecomers, and even the supposed free-trade champions like Britain and the United States, whose own histories reveal decades of strategic interference.

The Ladder Metaphor from Friedrich List

The book’s title originates from nineteenth-century German economist Friedrich List, who accused Britain of hypocrisy. After using tariffs and state-supported industry to rise to global dominance, Britain, according to List, began preaching free trade to poorer nations. He famously described this behavior as “kicking away the ladder by which [Britain] climbed up,” leaving others stranded at the bottom. Chang sees modern globalization as a replay of this same pattern.

By revisiting List’s ideas, Chang makes two bold claims: first, that free-market capitalism is not a universal pathway to prosperity; and second, that economic theories are deeply political—often designed to serve the interests of those already in power. This historical perspective challenges the moral legitimacy of the current global economic advice dispensed to developing nations.

Why History Matters More Than Theory

A major methodological contribution of Chang’s book is his call to “bring history back” into economics. Where modern neoclassical thinking relies on mathematical models and abstract assumptions, Chang favors an inductive, historical approach. He revisits how actual economic policies worked in practice rather than how they’re supposed to work in theory. This allows him to illuminate contradictions between what nations did and what they later claimed was responsible for their success.

Through this lens, he demonstrates that Britain industrialized behind stiff tariffs, the U.S. protected its infant industries for over a century, and latecomers like Japan and South Korea soared thanks to deliberate state planning—not pure market freedom. Ironically, once these nations achieved industrial maturity and competitive advantage, they switched to preaching laissez-faire to others.

Why Institutions Aren’t the Whole Story

In later chapters, Chang examines the second part of what he calls the “modern orthodoxy”: the belief that adopting “good institutions” is the key to development. Western powers insist that developing nations implement democratic governance, independent central banks, and rigid property-rights regimes. But, again, history tells a different story. Most developed countries only achieved these institutional qualities after—they were already rich. For instance, the United States established a central bank as late as 1913; Switzerland became a technological leader before having a patent law; and many Western nations extended the vote to all adults only in the twentieth century.

Chang argues that strong institutions often emerge because of economic development—not before it. Demanding them prematurely can drain resources, create bureaucratic burdens, and impede growth. He doesn’t reject institutional reform outright but calls for context-sensitive adaptation instead of blind imitation.

Challenging the Moral High Ground

Ultimately, Kicking Away the Ladder is as much an ethical critique as an economic one. It exposes the double standards of international economic policy and asks you to question what counts as “good behavior” in global development. Chang doesn’t deny the complexity of globalization, nor does he idealize protectionism. Rather, he urges readers to recognize history’s lessons: that countries need the freedom to experiment with policies suited to their stages of development. Otherwise, the global system will keep reinforcing inequality rather than reducing it.

Chang dismantles one of the most persistent economic myths—that nineteenth-century Britain and twentieth-century America became rich because of free trade. In reality, both nations built their industries behind walls of protection. Once dominant, they recast their histories as paragons of liberalism, teaching a revisionist version of their past to developing nations.

Britain’s Secret Industrial Protectionism

In fourteenth-century England, Edward III began banning imports of foreign wool cloth to nurture local production. By the Tudor era, monarchs like Henry VII and Elizabeth I were actively subsidizing the domestic textile industry. Chang cites Daniel Defoe’s 1728 account of England’s manufacturing rise as a deliberate project of state protection and strategic promotion. The famous Navigation Acts of the seventeenth century forced all trade with England to be conducted on English ships—modern equivalents of a national industrial policy.

Even as late as 1820, Britain maintained average tariffs on manufactured goods between 45 and 55 percent. Only after it had achieved global industrial dominance did it begin dismantling protections—culminating in the 1846 repeal of the Corn Laws. Free trade, Chang argues, was a luxury Britain adopted only after “winning the game.”

America: The Mother of Protectionism

While policymakers today hail America as a model of laissez-faire capitalism, its early economic doctrine was fiercely protectionist. Inspired by Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton’s 1791 “Report on Manufactures,” the U.S. used high tariffs to protect its infant industries from European competition. From 1816 to the Second World War, average U.S. industrial tariffs hovered around 40–50 percent—among the highest in the world.

Figures like Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln promoted the “American System”: high tariffs on manufactured goods, investment in infrastructure, and the creation of national institutions to foster industry. As Ha-Joon Chang points out, Lincoln’s victory and the North’s protectionist agenda were as central to the Civil War’s causes as the issue of slavery itself. Even the notorious 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff—often blamed for worsening the Great Depression—was not an anomaly but part of America’s long-standing tradition of protecting domestic production.

These historical cases show that “free trade” became the creed of already-developed nations—not a tool for development but for maintaining superiority. As one U.S. congressman in List’s time cynically put it, “English trade theory, like most English manufactured goods, is intended for export, not for consumption at home.”

Chang’s historical survey demonstrates that industrialization has never been the result of markets left to their own devices. Instead, it has always required deliberate state policy guiding production, investment, and technology. From mercantilist England to modern Japan, industrial strategy determined success more than classical theories ever predicted.

Europe’s Strategic States

Germany under Frederick the Great and later Bismarck shows how government planning drove industrialization. Prussia established state-owned model plants, recruited foreign engineers, and even subsidized industrial espionage. By the 1840s, industrial education institutions like the Gewerbeinstitut trained technicians for emerging sectors such as machinery and steel. Similarly, Sweden nurtured its engineering and iron industries through a combination of tariffs, export incentives, and public-private cooperation—policies eerily similar to those used by postwar Japan and South Korea.

Corporate and Technological Nation-Building

Industrialization also demanded institutions to manage risk and finance: limited liability corporations, central banks, and bankruptcy laws. Far from being laissez-faire mechanisms, these were state-sponsored inventions. Britain did not legalize general limited liability until 1856; the United States lacked a stable central bank until 1913. Chang argues that such measures “socialized risk” to make large-scale industrial ventures feasible—proof that markets depend on strong guidance, not minimal government.

Modern economic historians like Alexander Gerschenkron arrived at similar conclusions: latecomer nations can only industrialize with deliberate institutional innovations. Chang amplifies this argument by showing that innovation-friendly structures—such as patent flexibility or selective subsidies—emerged because societies prioritized development over doctrinal purity.

“Infant industry promotion has been the key to the rise of most nations,” Chang writes. “The exceptions are few, and they only prove the rule.”

In development circles, it’s now fashionable to say good institutions lead to prosperity. Chang flips this argument: most rich nations built strong institutions after they grew wealthy, not before. Economic development, he argues, often creates the political and administrative capacity necessary to sustain those institutions.

How History Defies the 'Good Governance' Dogma

Before their takeoff periods, few now-rich countries had modern institutions such as stable democracies, independent judiciaries, or sophisticated property rights. Britain didn’t establish secret ballots or widespread suffrage until the late nineteenth century. The U.S. lacked nationwide banking regulation and a professional civil service until the late 1800s. France, despite its revolutionary legacy, oscillated between monarchies and republics for much of the nineteenth century.

Even those “good institutions” that seem essential today—like central banks or intellectual property law—were either absent or weakly enforced during periods of rapid growth. Switzerland had no patent law until 1907 and yet led the world in chemicals and watchmaking. The Netherlands abolished its patent system for decades. Japan’s central bank, established under foreign pressure, gained real autonomy only in the twentieth century. Chang’s conclusion is striking: rich nations built institutions through trial, error, and adaptation rather than by imitating a foreign checklist.

Why Premature Imitation Fails

Importing advanced institutional models doesn’t automatically produce growth—it can even backfire. When developing countries pour scarce resources into maintaining “world-class” property laws or capital markets before industrializing, they divert energy from investment and education. Chang shows that during colonial eras, many regions adopted European legal systems without gaining any of the industrial strength that made Europe powerful.

He encourages what he calls “institutional catch-up”: learning from successful models but customizing them to local needs and maturity levels. Trying to implement twenty-first-century institutions in nineteenth-century economies, he warns, is like teaching calculus to someone who hasn’t yet learned arithmetic.

Perhaps the most striking insight in Chang’s book is that the current global economic order repeats a centuries-old hypocrisy. Rich countries, having benefited from protectionism and intervention, now prevent others from doing the same—through trade agreements, international financial conditions, and intellectual property regimes.

Modern Forms of the Ladder

In the nineteenth century, Britain imposed 'unequal treaties' on semi-colonial nations like China and the Ottoman Empire, fixing tariffs at a mere five percent. Today, the WTO and IMF enforce similar restrictions through structural adjustment programs and free-trade clauses. The names may have changed, Chang argues, but the purpose remains: to limit policy space for developing economies.

By banning subsidies, restricting local content rules, and insisting on stringent intellectual property enforcement, advanced economies make it harder for developing nations to nurture infant industries. Crucially, these measures are often defended under the moral language of fairness and openness—even though they structurally favor the incumbents. For example, global pharmaceutical patents raise costs for poor nations while cementing Western monopolies.

Ethics and Economics Collide

Chang’s metaphor of ladder-kicking is not just descriptive—it is moral commentary. He asks readers to see how rules disguised as “universal” are actually based on vested power. Developed countries often portray their own histories as models of virtue, but history shows their success came from breaking those very rules. He calls for intellectual honesty from economists and policymakers: acknowledge that the pathways to development are plural, historical, and unequal.

In his final chapters, Chang turns from critique to prescription. What can modern policymakers, economists, and citizens take from this reinterpretation of history? He argues for a pragmatic, context-sensitive approach that gives developing countries freedom to design their own strategies rather than follow rigid blueprints imposed from abroad.

Freedom to Experiment

Chang urges developing nations to reclaim policy space for industrial learning—tariffs, subsidies, and strategic state investments. He doesn’t romanticize protectionism but stresses timing: temporary state support until industries can compete internationally. As Japan and Korea later demonstrated, the key lies in disciplined institutions that reward exporters and innovation rather than perpetuate inefficiency.

Rethinking Global Rules

He also advocates rewriting international trade rules to allow “policy diversity.” Just as rich nations once defied orthodoxy, today’s developing countries should be allowed to pursue their own balanced models—neither purist free markets nor rigid state control. International institutions like the WTO and IMF, he suggests, must stop assuming a single developmental path.

Ultimately, Kicking Away the Ladder invites you to question progress narratives that ignore power or history. It asks whether fairness means equal rules—or equitable opportunities. For Chang, true globalization is not about universal conformity but about giving latecomers the same freedom early developers once enjoyed.