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“Even many Marxists, especially Karl Kautsky, were sceptical about its prospects – socialism was, according to Marx himself, supposed to emerge from the most developed capitalist economies. Those economies were only a step away from a fully planned economy, it was argued, because their economic activities were already planned to a high degree by large enterprises and cartels of those enterprises.” Excerpt From: Ha-Joon Chang. “Economics: The User's Guide.” Bloomsbury Press, 2014-08-26T00:00:00+00:00. iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright.

“As for the other cornerstone of capitalism, wage labour, the picture was more complicated. Yes, in theory the Soviet workers were not wage labourers because they owned all the means of production – through state ownership or cooperatives. In practice they were indistinguishable from wage labourers in a capitalist economy, since they had little control over the way in which their enterprises and the wider economy operated, and their daily work experience was still subject to the same hierarchical relationship.” Excerpt From: Ha-Joon Chang. “Economics: The User's Guide.” Bloomsbury Press, 2014-08-26T00:00:00+00:00. iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright.

“At one level, the outbreak of the First World War should not have been surprising, given that the globalization of the ‘high noon’ had been in large part driven by imperialism, rather than market forces. This meant that the international rivalry between the leading capitalist countries had a high chance of escalating into violent conflicts. Some went even further and argued that capitalism had reached a stage in which it could not be sustained without continuous outward expansion, which has to come to an end sooner or later, marking the end of capitalism.” Excerpt From: Ha-Joon Chang. “Economics: The User's Guide.” Bloomsbury Press, 2014-08-26T00:00:00+00:00. iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright.

“The liberal golden age of 1870–1913 was thus not as liberal as we think. It was getting less liberal in the core capitalist countries, in terms of both domestic and international policies. Liberalization happened mostly in the weaker countries, but out of compulsion rather than choice – through colonialism and unequal treaties. In the only peripheral region that experienced rapid growth during this period, namely, Latin America, there was a vast increase in protectionism following the expiry of the unequal treaties.” Excerpt From: Ha-Joon Chang. “Economics: The User's Guide.” Bloomsbury Press, 2014-08-26T00:00:00+00:00. iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright.

“History affects the present – not simply because it is what came before the present but also because it (or, rather, what people think they know about it) informs people’s decisions.” Excerpt From: Ha-Joon Chang. “Economics: The User's Guide.” Bloomsbury Press, 2014-08-26T00:00:00+00:00. iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright.

“Free trade spreads – mostly through unfree means Free trade was not responsible for the rise of capitalism, but it did spread throughout the nineteenth century.” Excerpt From: Ha-Joon Chang. “Economics: The User's Guide.” Bloomsbury Press, 2014-08-26T00:00:00+00:00. iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright.

“Colonization was the obvious route to ‘unfree free trade’, but even many countries that were not colonized were also forced to adopt free trade. Through ‘gunboat diplomacy’, they were forced to sign unequal treaties that deprived them of, among other things, tariff autonomy (the right to set their own tariffs).” Excerpt From: Ha-Joon Chang. “Economics: The User's Guide.” Bloomsbury Press, 2014-08-26T00:00:00+00:00. iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright.

“New economic institutions emerge to deal with growing production scale, risk, and instability” Excerpt From: Ha-Joon Chang. “Economics: The User's Guide.” Bloomsbury Press, 2014-08-26T00:00:00+00:00. iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright.

“During its ‘high noon’, capitalism acquired the basic institutional shape that it has today – the limited liability company, bankruptcy law, the central bank, the welfare state, labour laws and so on. These institutional shifts came about basically because of the changes in underlying technologies and politics.” Excerpt From: Ha-Joon Chang. “Economics: The User's Guide.” Bloomsbury Press, 2014-08-26T00:00:00+00:00. iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright.

“Last but not least, we need to look at history because we have the moral duty to avoid ‘live experiments’ with people as much as possible.” Excerpt From: Ha-Joon Chang. “Economics: The User's Guide.” Bloomsbury Press, 2014-08-26T00:00:00+00:00. iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright.

“History is useful in highlighting the limits of economic theory. Life is often stranger than fiction, and history provides many successful economic experiences (at all levels – nations, companies, individuals) that cannot be tidily explained by any single economic theory.” Excerpt From: Ha-Joon Chang. “Economics: The User's Guide.” Bloomsbury Press, 2014-08-26T00:00:00+00:00. iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright.

“If you refuse to let your own suffering lie upon you even for an hour and if you constantly try to prevent and forestall all possible distress way ahead of time; if you experience suffering and displeasure as evil, hateful, worthy of annihilation, and as a defect of existence, then it is clear that [you harbour in your heart] … the religion of comfortableness. How little you know of human happiness, you comfortable … people, for happiness and unhappiness are sisters and even twins that either grow up together or, as in your case, remain small together.” Excerpt From: Alain De Botton. “The Consolations of Philosophy.” Vintage, 2000-01-01T00:00:00+00:00. iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright.

“An artist’s conscience because artistic creation offers a most explicit example of an activity which may deliver immense fulfilment but always demands immense suffering.” Excerpt From: Alain De Botton. “The Consolations of Philosophy.” Vintage, 2000-01-01T00:00:00+00:00. iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright.

“All these modes of thought which assess the value of things according to pleasure and pain, that is to say according to attendant and secondary phenomena, are foreground modes of thought and naïveties which anyone conscious of creative powers and an artist’s conscience will look down on with derision.” Excerpt From: Alain De Botton. “The Consolations of Philosophy.” Vintage, 2000-01-01T00:00:00+00:00. iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright.

“To believe that wine makes cheerful I would have to be a Christian, that is to say believe what is for me in particular an absurdity.” Excerpt From: Alain De Botton. “The Consolations of Philosophy.” Vintage, 2000-01-01T00:00:00+00:00. iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright.

“There may be differences between such words and a drink but Nietzsche insisted on an essential equivalence. Both Christianity and alcohol have the power to convince us that what we previously thought deficient in ourselves and the world does not require attention; both weaken our resolve to garden our problems; both deny us the chance of fulfilment: The two great European narcotics, alcohol and Christianity.” Excerpt From: Alain De Botton. “The Consolations of Philosophy.” Vintage, 2000-01-01T00:00:00+00:00. iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright.

“Christians had wished to enjoy the real ingredients of fulfilment (a position in the world, sex, intellectual mastery, creativity) but did not have the courage to endure the difficulties these goods demanded.” Excerpt From: Alain De Botton. “The Consolations of Philosophy.” Vintage, 2000-01-01T00:00:00+00:00. iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright.