some of the key tenets of neoliberalism have been undermined by this crisis... [F]irst... this view that the less state there is the better... has been totally exposed, as countries that have had their government intervening, oddly to test, trace and isolate the infected people, such as South Korea, New Zealand, Denmark, Vietnam... have minimized the spread of disease... [I]n Vietnam officially the death toll from Covid-19 is zero. ...[E]ven if you do not believe that... number it is very very low. In contrast the UK, the US, Brazil, countries that have refused to take quick public action, trying to believe that the greater economic freedom... the better... have had to... go into severe lockdown, and despite that, have produced a huge number of infected people and death." - Meaning and context.">

Another important change is that some of the key tenets of neoliberalism have been undermined by this crisis... [F]irst... this view that the less state there is the better... has been totally exposed, as countries that have had their government intervening, oddly to test, trace and isolate the infected people, such as South Korea, New Zealand, Denmark, Vietnam... have minimized the spread of disease... [I]n Vietnam officially the death toll from Covid-19 is zero. ...[E]ven if you do not believe that... number it is very very low. In contrast the UK, the US, Brazil, countries that have refused to take quick public action, trying to believe that the greater economic freedom... the better... have had to... go into severe lockdown, and despite that, have produced a huge number of infected people and death.

— Ha-Joon Chang

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Another important change is that some of the key tenets of neoliberalism have been undermined by this crisis... [F]irst... this view that the less state there is the better... has been totally exposed, as countries that have had their government intervening, oddly to test, trace and isolate the infected people, such as South Korea, New Zealand, Denmark, Vietnam... have minimized the spread of disease... [I]n Vietnam officially the death toll from Covid-19 is zero. ...[E]ven if you do not believe that... number it is very very low. In contrast the UK, the US, Brazil, countries that have refused to take quick public action, trying to believe that the greater economic freedom... the better... have had to... go into severe lockdown, and despite that, have produced a huge number of infected people and death." in the context of "" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Ha-Joon Chang

About Ha-Joon Chang

Ha-Joon Chang (Hangul: 장하준; hanja: 張夏准; born 7 October 1963) is a South Korean institutional economist specialising in development economics. Currently a reader in the Political Economy of Development at the University of Cambridge, Chang is the author of several widely discussed policy books, most notably Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective (2002). In 2013 Prospect magazine ranked Chang as one of the top 20 World Thinkers.