The lovely book was written by the wonderful Ha-Joon Chang, who is a British-Korean economist. Ha-Joon Chang is a total rockstar in the world of development economics today! He's been teaching economics at Cambridge University in the UK for over 30 years, and now he's a professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.

Jang is not only a world-renowned development economist, but he's also a gourmet eater with a passion for food! As he's been learning about economics through eating, he's found that even a simple meal can sometimes give us a peek into the ups and downs of companies, countries, and economies. And it's so interesting how these things are often connected! So, the English subtitle of this book is called "A hungry economist explains the world" – a hungry economist explains the world.

I think this subtitle is spot on! When we open the book, we're greeted by a feast for the eyes and the tummy! There are all kinds of delicious food and drink: acorns, coconuts, anchovies, shrimp, noodles, beef, bananas, cola, rye, chicken, chilli peppers, strawberries, chocolate... The titles of each chapter are all food-related and are just one word long. If you take a look at the content of each chapter, you'll really get a sense of the "hunger" that Zhang Xiajun feels. Just a friendly heads-up: if you're really hungry, it might not be the best idea to open this book! This is because Ha-Joon Chang often paints such vivid pictures with his words, taking us on a journey through the colour, smell, texture and taste of the food he describes. He even goes so far as to describe the experience of eating the food, and even the process of cooking it! I just had to tell you all how much I enjoyed reading this book! It was so enjoyable and it made me feel hungry!

I'd love to know what role these foods play in the book! Mr. Chang Hsia-chun calls them "bait," and I think that's a great way to describe them! As we get lost in the delicious reading experience brought to us by the food, we'll be like frogs in warm water, unaware that we're being drawn into a serious economic issue by the wonderful Zhang Ha-Jun. It's totally normal to find yourself reading about industrial layout, limited liability systems, the employment impact of automation, infant industry protectionism, trade fairness, and other topics that you might not normally be interested in specialising in when you come back to your senses.

And you never know what each chapter will bring! Take the chapter on anchovies, for instance. It starts off by introducing different ways of cooking anchovies around the world and how people's taste in them has changed. Then it gets really interesting! It says, "In addition to bringing different flavours, anchovies also bring a wealth of wealth." You think, "Oh my, are we going to talk about fish exports now?" You might be thinking we'd be talking about fish exports. It's true that anchovies are at the root of Peru's economic prosperity. But here's an interesting fact: Peru doesn't actually export anchovies. Instead, it exports seabird guano, which is used to make gunpowder and fertiliser for the birds that feed primarily on anchovies. And there's more! This chapter goes on to say that Peru's guano boom didn't last very long. In 1909, a German scientist found a way to make artificial fertiliser using just air. And history is full of similar situations, where new technology has sadly led to the decline of some major commodity exporters. And now, the main character of the chapter really comes into play!

I just love how this book intertwines the fascinating world of economics with the delicious mystery of food. It's such a fun read! I just love reading and trying to guess what Zhang Xajun is going to talk about next after reading the title and beginning of a chapter! It's always so tricky to guess, though. If you're interested, you can also give the challenge a go!
Well, let's follow Ha-Joon Chang's "food bait" and have a little look at some stories about corporations, nations and the future together!

Let's start with a story about business.

Noodles – Business This lovely story begins with noodles.

Jang Ha-joon, who grew up in South Korea, playfully teased his fellow Koreans about their love of noodles. The lovely folks over at the World Instant Noodle Association tell us that our friends in Korea are the biggest instant noodle lovers in the world, with an average of nearly 80 servings per person per year! And that's just instant noodles! There are so many other kinds of noodles in Korea, too. Soft, hard, thick, thin, and noodles made from all kinds of different raw materials.

Jang Ha-joon playfully teases that, just like trying to turn all vegetables into kimchi, Koreans turn almost any carbohydrate-rich plant into noodles. And there are so many other kinds of noodles too! Sweet potatoes, potatoes, cassava, acorns, sweet corn, rice, barley, and so on.
In terms of shapes, Korean noodles are a bit more limited, but they're still pretty special! There are basically two kinds: strips or flakes. So when Jang Ha-joon first travelled to Italy in the late 1980s, he was really surprised to find out that there were so many different shapes of pasta! There were so many different shapes! There were tubes, rings, spirals, butterflies, human ears, shells, grains of rice, dumplings, and many shapes that I couldn't even begin to describe. Some were like wagon wheels, while others looked like olive leaves or gyros. There were even shapes that looked like radiators! Guess what! There are more than 200 shapes of pasta in total!

And the Italians just keep on coming up with more and more creative pasta shapes! Back in the 1980s, a famous industrial designer called Giorgetto Giugiaro was asked by a high-end pasta brand to create a beautiful, even somewhat futuristic, pasta. The idea was to make a wavy tubular pasta that would retain the sauce well without absorbing too much of it. It was also described as really pretty and even "architectural"!

Sadly, even though the noodles were really lovely, they didn't sell very well. It was a bit tricky to cook evenly, which is a bit of a shame for Italians who are really passionate about the texture of pasta!

However, Giorgetto Giugiaro, who designed this pasta, didn't let it get him down. After all, people's main business isn't even that! He's one of the world's most successful automobile designers of the past half-century. Guess what! This amazing Italian designer, from the land of pasta, actually came up with the idea for the "Pony" car.

I'd love to know who commissioned him to design this car! Guess who the commissioner was? He came from the other pasta-crazy country we mentioned earlier, South Korea! The lovely Pony was launched in 1975 by the wonderful folks at Hyundai Motor Company of Korea. Of course, Hyundai was completely unknown at the time.

I'm sure you didn't see that coming, right? This story that started with pasta features a car company! Italy and Korea are two countries that love their noodles! And it turns out that there's a hidden connection between them.

So, how are the sales of the Pony car that this Italian designer designed for Hyundai Korea? I'd love to know!

Sadly, it wasn't very successful. After the Pony was designed, it didn't get many overseas orders in its first production year, which was a bit of a shame. Then Ecuador bought five of them, which made Koreans really happy! At that time, Korea was known for exporting cheap labour goods. Oh, you know, things like wigs, clothes, toys, and so on. And those five cars showed that people from other countries were actually starting to be interested in buying cars from Korea!

Despite a bit of a rocky start, Hyundai really took off and grew at a phenomenal rate over the next few years. By the time the 21st century rolled around, it had become one of the world's top 10 automakers! By 2009, Hyundai had become so successful that it surpassed Ford in production. And in 2015, it surpassed General Motors too!

It's such an incredible story! If you could go back in time to 1976 and tell people in South Korea, a poor developing country at the time, that a little auto repair shop there would one day become bigger than GM, they'd probably think you were crazy! I bet people thought that person was crazy when they said that!

So, you might be wondering, why did this incredible story happen? The lovely folks over at the Free Market Economics Institute say it's all down to Hyundai having some pretty visionary entrepreneurs and a workforce that's just raring to go!

Of course, we can't deny that these factors exist. But if we take a closer look, we can see that Ha-Joon Chang makes a really interesting point. He says that the main reason for Hyundai's success is not just down to the individual talents of the heroic entrepreneurs. It's also because of government support.

The South Korean government was really helping out Hyundai by banning the import of all cars until 1988, and Japanese cars until 1998. This gave Hyundai and other local automakers in South Korea a chance to grow. The thinking behind this policy is what you might know as "infant industry protection".

The term 'infant industry' is used to describe a new and strategic industry in a country that is still finding its feet and may not be able to withstand foreign competition. I truly believe that if we can find the right protection policies for this industry, it will gradually grow bigger and stronger. It will become an internationally competitive industry that will contribute to the development of our national economy.

Let's go back to Korea. And there's more! Until the early 1990s, Korea also made sure that Hyundai Motor and other companies in strategic high-tech industries had access to highly subsidised credit. Without these protections, it's fair to say that Korean automakers would not have survived and thrived. Of course, Korean consumers have had to make some sacrifices along the way, putting up with inferior domestic cars and not being able to drive imported cars for decades.

And it's not just Hyundai Motor Company that has done this – there are so many other Korean companies that have succeeded in the same way! Take Samsung and LG, for instance. They started out in sugar refining and textiles and have become the world's leading manufacturers of semiconductors and cellular telephones! And then there's LG, which started out selling cosmetics and toothpaste and has become the head of the global display market. There are so many other examples in other countries too! Just think of Toyota and Mitsubishi in Japan, and the Finnish industrial giant Nokia, to name but a few. All of these companies transformed and thrived not only thanks to the amazing entrepreneurs and the hard work of the companies themselves, but also thanks to some pretty key factors that we can't ignore: the support of the government and the sacrifices of the consumers in their countries.

If you've read Ha-Joon Chang's book, 'The Rich Country Trap', you'll know that protecting these infant industries isn't just a way for late-developing countries to catch up. Like the United Kingdom and the United States, the first developed countries, they achieved industrialisation and economic take-off. They never claimed to be small governments, nor did they believe in laissez-faire industrial policies and free trade. Instead, they saw the value in having a strong government that promoted infantile industry protection. This included high tariffs, industrial support, direct subsidies, and even having the national team directly under the field. They only fully implemented the free trade system once they had fully established their own industrial superiority.

Take Britain, for instance. They were actually the first to put this into practice! It was still using all kinds of helpful policies to support its own manufacturing industry until 1860. By 1860, though, there was a complete change of heart! They slashed tariffs and threw open the doors, welcoming all countries' goods with open arms. They were really committed to free trade and didn't want to see latecomer countries use high tariffs to protect their own industries. At this time, Britain had already become the dominant force in industry, so protecting its own interests was more important than ever.

And then we have the United States. Guess who first came up with the idea of protecting infant industries? None other than Alexander Hamilton, an American politician! And the United States is a great example of a country that has embraced this approach. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was really important to protect new businesses in the US from those that were already established in other countries, especially in Britain. After World War II, the U.S. government did something really amazing! They used public funds to develop all the basic technologies of the Information Age, including computers, semiconductors, the Internet, GPS systems, touch screens, and so on. Guess who were the first to develop them? The Pentagon and the U.S. military's "National Defense Research Program"! Can you imagine a world without IBM, Intel, Apple, or Silicon Valley? It's hard to fathom, isn't it? These incredible companies wouldn't exist without these technologies.

So the story we're sharing started with noodles and was sparked by the intertwining of two countries with a love for noodles: South Korea and Italy. It shows us that, in today's economy, entrepreneurship – whether it's a business or an industry – is not just about one person. This shows us that in today's economy, "entrepreneurship" – whether it's a business or an industry – is not something that happens on its own. It's something that happens when lots of people work together! And, in this endeavour, it's important not to put too much faith in the rhetoric of the first movers, my friends. You know, as the 19th-century German economist Lister said, it's a pretty clever thing to do when you've made it to the top. It's like kicking away the ladder you climbed up on, so others can't follow in your footsteps.
That's why the original English title of Hazard Chang's book, "The Fortune Trap," translates to "Kicking Away the Ladder" (Kicking Away the Ladder). In this book, he takes the story he told in The Rich Country Trap and goes on to explore it further, taking us on a journey through time and space.

The Chocolate-State

Let's dive into another fascinating tale about nations, this time with a sweet treat!

Mr. Zhang Xajun is the first to admit that he's a bit of a chocolate addict. He's been hooked on this "illegal substance" since he was just a little kid who couldn't walk properly. I'd love to know why it's an illegal substance! Do you know why chocolate was only sold on the black market in Korea back then? Well, it was smuggled out of US military bases!

Back then, Korea had a pretty strict import policy. They didn't allow many foreign products to cross the border, including cars, TVs, cookies, chocolate, and even bananas! The only things they let in were machines and raw materials that were needed for industrialisation. So, some folks at that time would help out by smuggling in a few small items.

One of the most popular products among these small goods was chocolate, mainly M&M's and Hershey's milk chocolate bars. M&M's were Junior Zhang Xiajun's absolute favourite at that time! Since that time, he says he has spent the last 60 years trying to fight his cravings, but he still always succumbs to the scent of chocolate.

In the book, he can speak of a wide range of chocolate types, from some exquisite chocolate treats from high-end chocolate makers to plain, solid chocolate bars, as well as nutty chocolates, chocolate brownies, lava chocolates, and so on – and he loves them all!
Chocolate is a delicious treat that we all know and love. But did you know where it comes from? Well, chocolate is made from the seeds of the cacao tree and it originally came from Central America. It first appeared in Europe in the 16th century when the Spaniards brought it home from Mexico after conquering the Aztec Empire. Back then, people still mainly consumed chocolate as a drink or a viscous sauce. It wasn't until the mid-19th century that chocolate was made into a solid form.

But the chocolate of that time was not the delicious milk chocolate that we all know and love today – it was dark chocolate! People at the time tried so many times to add milk to chocolate, but it just didn't work! The problem was that liquid milk causes mould to develop. I'd love to know how this problem was solved! It wasn't until 1875 that two enterprising Swiss men had the brilliant idea to ditch the use of fresh milk and switch to powdered milk, which led to the creation of the first milk chocolate bars! These two men went on to team up with others to create the wonderful food giant we are so familiar with today, Nestlé. Just a few more years later, another Swiss company, Lindt, came up with a brilliant idea: a refining process where machines mix the ingredients for a long time, making the chocolate even more delicious and improving its texture. Thanks to this, Switzerland became the place to go for high-quality chocolate!

And now, without further ado, we'd like to introduce the star of our show: Switzerland!
When most of us think of Swiss-made products, we usually think of chocolate or expensive watches. That's why most people think of Switzerland as a country that relies on the service sector rather than manufacturing. Many people think of Switzerland as a great example of a country that has made the transition from an industrial to a post-industrial economy. They believe that Switzerland's prosperity is based on service industries such as finance and high-end tourism, rather than manufacturing.

This idea of a 'post-industrial era' actually started in the 1970s. It all starts with the idea that as people get richer, their needs change and they want better and more sophisticated things. Once people have had their bellies filled, they'll be looking for some lovely everyday items, like clothes and furniture. Once those needs are met, people will want more sophisticated consumer goods again, like electronics and cars. This is how industrialisation happens! And when people have more industrial goods, they'll want to enjoy more services, like restaurants, movies and musicals, travel, financial services, and so on. This is great news for us all! It means that the service sector will become the dominant economic sector, which is the start of the post-industrial era of human economic progress.

This way of thinking really took off in the 1990s. It was a time when almost all wealthy economies saw a shift. Manufacturing wasn't as important as it had been before. Services were becoming more and more important. This was reflected not only in the share of output, but also in the share of employment. Many scholars have affectionately dubbed this process "deindustrialization." This is why those who believe we're entering a post-industrial era say that manufacturing is now the domain of countries with lower skill levels and lower wages. They also believe that high-end services, such as finance, IT services, and business consulting, are the future for wealthy countries.

These lovely people who believe in the post-industrial era are particularly fond of using Switzerland and Singapore as examples to show that countries can maintain high living standards by specialising in services. And as a result of these ideas, some developing countries, such as Indonesia and Rwanda, have even been trying to skip industrialisation and develop their economies by specialising in the export of high-end services.

But what do you think? Is this view right or wrong in the post-industrial era? Ha-Joon Chang has a different take on it. He gently reminds us that these post-industrial era proponents, who cite Switzerland and Singapore as models of a service economy, might be a little mistaken. It's a bit like using Scandinavian countries to promote sunny beach holidays!
I'd love to explain why I think this is a bit off the mark. But here's the thing. Switzerland and Singapore are actually the first and second most industrialised economies in the world. Their per capita manufacturing output is among the top two in the world.

So, why do we think there are fewer products made in Switzerland or Singapore? It's mostly because these countries are small, so their total output is small. Many of their manufactured goods are machines, precision equipment, and industrial chemicals that the average consumer doesn't normally have access to.

This shows us that the examples that people in the post-industrial era love to use are actually wrong. So, what do you think? Ha-Joon Chang has a different take on it, too. The post-industrial era view is that the shift in economic structure from agriculture-heavy to manufacturing-heavy to service-heavy is driven by a change in people's needs. Mr. Zhang Xiazhun, however, has a different take. He believes that the main driving force behind the structural change of the economy is not demand, but change in productivity. Let me explain his reasoning to you.

When we're chatting about the big changes in our economy, we often look at how many people are working and how much stuff we're making. So, if we think about employment, why is it that more and more people are working in the service sector? It's because, as a result of changes in productivity, the manufacturing process is becoming more and more mechanised, which means we just don't need as many workers anymore. And another thing. Why is the share of manufacturing output going down while the share of service sector output is going up? It's not because we're all demanding more and more services, as some people say. It's because manufactured goods are becoming cheaper and cheaper compared to services. We can think of things like computers, cell phones, and household appliances. They've become so affordable and widely available over the past few decades, haven't they? On the other hand, prices are going up for lots of different services. This is true whether we're talking about basic services like haircuts and catering, or high-end services like counselling or finance.

The lovely Ha-Joon Chang did a study that showed something pretty interesting. It seems that when we look at the relative price changes, the share of manufacturing in the national output of most affluent countries has only slightly declined over the past few decades. In fact, in some countries it has even increased! Take Switzerland, which we mentioned earlier, as well as Sweden and Finland.

And there's more! Manufacturing has also remained a major source of technological innovation until now. It's so interesting to see how manufacturing is still going strong in the U.S. and the U.K.! Even though manufacturing accounts for only about 10% of economic output in these countries, it still plays a big role in research and development. In fact, 60% to 70% of research and development is carried out by the manufacturing sector in the U.S. and the U.K. And it's not just here in the U.S. and the U.K.! In economies that emphasize manufacturing more, such as Germany or South Korea, the proportion is as high as 80% to 90%!

So, you might be wondering why Zhang Ha-Jun goes to such great lengths to argue against the idea of the post-industrial era. I think it's really important to be careful with this narrative, as it can sometimes do more harm than good for a country.

He also says that the United States and the United Kingdom have been negatively affected by this narrative. It's so sad to see that since the 1980s, both the UK and the US, especially the UK, have been neglecting the manufacturing sector. They've even taken the decline of the manufacturing sector as a positive sign that the country is transitioning from an industrial economy to a so-called "post-industrial economy". This way of thinking has also been a handy excuse for policymakers, as it means they don't have to take action against the decline of the manufacturing sector.

So, you might be wondering, where did the UK and the US put their efforts in neglecting the manufacturing sector? Ha-Joon Chang says that for many years, the UK and US economies were driven by the financial sector, which eventually came crashing down in the 2008 global financial crisis. And since then, the so-called gradual recovery has relied on little more than some pretty amazing low interest rates and central bank-led quantitative easing. And these have gradually started to separate the financial markets of the United Kingdom and the United States from the real economy. The United States is a very popular destination these days! Oh, you know, Wall Street and Maine Street are two totally different things! This Maine Street is Main Street, and it's a place that's close to our hearts. It's not just a street, but a symbol of the American middle class.

So, to wrap up, this story of economics started with chocolate, and Zhang Xiajun would love to tell you more! Even if you've bought the only "Swiss-made" chocolate, don't be fooled by this appearance. Switzerland's manufacturing industry is just as impressive as we've come to expect from them! The wonderful thing about Switzerland is that its success isn't just down to banking and high-end tourism. It's also thanks to its strong manufacturing sector! In the story we tell about the post-industrial era, Switzerland has been held up as a role model, but perhaps it's time we rethought that. At best, it's a bit misleading. At worst, it can actually harm the real economy. If we believe the post-industrial narrative, we might take some risks.

Strawberry-Future

Let's have a little chat about what Ha-Joon Chang has to say about the future. Let's start with a lovely strawberry.

Strawberries are often incorrectly thought of as berries, but they're actually an aggregate fruit. Strawberries are used to make some of the most beautiful sweets you can imagine, like cakes and pies. And of course, who doesn't love a delicious strawberry jam? Ha-Joon Zhang's absolute favourite way to eat strawberry jam is to spread it on a scone with some cream – it's so delicious!

We're so lucky to have strawberries in plentiful supply and they're now readily available to everyone! It's so lovely that we can enjoy fresh strawberries all year round, but it does mean that a lot of human labour is needed behind the scenes to supply them!

Strawberries are a really labour-intensive crop. It's especially tricky when it comes to picking them! They tend to hide in the leaves, sometimes very deeply, so it takes time to find them. They're also very soft, so you have to be very careful when picking them.

Many wealthy countries have found a great way to keep their strawberry costs down by hiring immigrant workers who are happy to work for less. Let me give you an example. California is the largest agricultural state in the U.S. The strawberry fields there rely on a lot of hard-working folks from Mexico. Mexican immigrant workers affectionately call strawberries "the devil's fruit." It's no surprise that strawberry picking is one of the lowest-paying and most tiring farm jobs in California. Strawberry plants are very low to the ground, so you have to keep bending down to pick them for 10-12 hours a day, which can cause extreme physical pain and even disability. It's really tough work! It's so sad - the workers are paid very low wages and work under harsh conditions, and many are even mistreated.

I'm sure this doesn't sound like something that happened in an era of highly mechanised agriculture to many of you. But the truth is that picking strawberries has always been a job that's very difficult to mechanise. Picking strawberries is a bit of a challenge because you have to use your judgement to find the fruit and then decide if it's ready to be picked. It's such a delicate job that if you're not careful, the fruit can get hurt. Some folks even call strawberry picking the "last frontier" in the fight against agricultural automation.

But now, in this last frontier, things are changing! At the time of writing, some companies were already working on something really exciting! They're developing robotic pickers that can locate and assess the ripeness of strawberries and then pick them without harming them. While these robots aren't quite ready to take over the world, they're getting better all the time. Who knows, maybe we'll soon see robots picking strawberries, raspberries, tomatoes and lettuce! After all, we've already seen them picking apples, pears and grapes.
Sadly, this also means that the picker's job is under threat from automation.

Oh yes, this is the story that started with strawberries, the real star of the show – automation! Zhang Xiajun helpfully put the recent AI wave into the historical process of automation.
It's no secret that AI is advancing rapidly, and this has understandably led to concerns about potential job losses in the future. Many experts and scholars have kindly shared their thoughts on this topic. Zhang Xiajun's take on things isn't new, but it's definitely worth a listen. It might just bring a little bit of comfort.

Zhang Xazhun started off by sharing his thoughts on the anxiety surrounding automation that we've all seen in the media recently. He asked a really interesting question: for at least the last two and a half centuries, the constant growth of automation has actually been leading to job losses. But why is it that in recent years, this anxiety has suddenly been talked about a lot in the media by journalists, economists, and business commentators?

Zhang Xazhun said he thought there might be a few people trying to be something they're not in all of this. It's funny to think that back in the day, when the punditry class thought their jobs were safe from automation, they could easily dismiss blue-collar workers who resisted technology and call them "Luddites". The Luddites were a group of English textile workers who led the effort to smash textile machines in the early 1800s. At the time, people who were concerned about this saw it as a bit of a setback for social progress. But now, automation is affecting the white-collar professions that these critics and their friends work in, including journalism, medicine, law, accounting, finance, teaching, and so on. So they're starting to feel a little worried, and they're sharing that worry in their main opinion.

But Mr Zhang says we shouldn't let ourselves get too worried by this. Take a look at the data and you'll see that, even though automation has been around for 250 years, from textile machines to computers, we've never actually seen them destroy jobs on a large scale. And that's what Ha-Joon Chang thinks the future holds.

It's also important to remember that it can take a long time for a new technology to go from being invented to replacing a lot of people in work.

Take the world's first washing machine, for example. It was invented in 1858, and many washerwomen began to fear losing their jobs. But guess what? The number of washerwomen in the United States actually rose for the next 50 years! I'd love to know why that is! The technology wasn't quite there yet, and it was also quite expensive. It wasn't until the 1920s, when washing machines became really popular, that the number of laundresses began to fall.

But here's another thing to think about. Even if automation becomes more and more common and makes things cheaper, it could actually lead to more jobs! Because when products get cheaper, people want more of them, and that means more work for people to make them. Let me give you an example. Studies have shown that automation in the United States in the 19th century reduced the amount of textile labour needed to produce cotton cloth by 98%. Amazing, right? But here's the interesting part: the number of weavers didn't decrease by that much. It actually increased by a factor of four! This is because people wanted to buy more cotton because it was cheaper.

And it's not just that automation is going to take away some jobs. It's also going to create new ones! Take strawberries, for instance. While robots may replace people who pick them by hand, it also creates a demand for robotics engineers, as well as workers who produce robots and manufacture robot parts. Another great thing about automation is that it creates indirect jobs, too! For example, the advent of computers and the internet may have destroyed many travel agency jobs as we book our own trips online, but it has also created many other jobs in the tourism industry, such as staff working for companies like Ctrip, or online rental businesses, to name but a few. And there's another thing. As we've seen, when new technology comes along, it makes us more productive. That means we can earn more money per person, which means we'll want to spend more on new things. This is great news for us all! It means that lots of new job opportunities will be created to meet the needs of a more diverse and higher standard of living.

According to Ha-Joon Chang, all these forces will affect employment in different ways, and work in unpredictable ways, and this will continue to be the case for a long time to come.
So what this story, which begins with strawberries, is trying to tell us is that just as strawberries are often mislabeled as "berries," automation is often seen as a job destroyer, but it is not. It's so encouraging to see that over the last 250 years of continuous automation, we've seen a general trend of continuous productivity gains and the emergence of new jobs of all kinds, while the majority of people in society still have jobs. All of this shows us that, so far, automation hasn't had a negative effect on jobs. It's so important to remember these historical facts, because they'll help us beat that "technophobia" or sense of hopelessness that's starting to affect people all over the world.

And that's a wrap for today's Edible Economics! A Hungry Economist Explains the World in a Way That's Easy to Digest! And there are some other yummy foods we haven't got to yet, with some fascinating economics behind them! For example, there's the story of okra and the rise of capitalist America, whose free trade in beef is really free. There's also the fascinating tale of rye and steel, which created the first welfare state. And there's more! If you're interested, you can click on the e-book at the end of the manuscript for some lovely reading!

I also found it really interesting that Ha-Joon Chang, who is a great economist and also really interested in food, says that there are some dietary recommendations that anyone interested in economics can follow to enjoy the taste and sustenance of economics properly.
Firstly, it's so important to eat a varied diet! It's really helpful to understand the different views of different schools of economics or at least different economists on the same topic. It's a bit like eating a wide variety of foods – it'll help you get a more balanced and healthy intake!
Secondly, it's always a great idea to be open to trying new things! Even if you already have a favourite economic theory, it's always a great idea to keep an open mind and be excited about learning about other economic theories! The British used to stick to their traditional diet, but after opening their arms to the diets of other countries, they realised that life could be better – and it was!

And thirdly, it's always a good idea to take a close look at the facts behind an economic view before accepting it. It's a bit like checking the ingredients before you start cooking! That's why it's so important to make sure that the facts used in an economic analysis are accurate and that the reality being represented is as unbiased as possible. Otherwise, it's impossible to get meaningful results! It's like that saying, 'garbage in, garbage out'.

Fourthly, it's so important to use your imagination and form your own economic opinions. Just like those who dare to challenge traditional dishes and culinary conventions – that's what makes a good cook! And this advice isn't just for economists, but for anyone who cares about how the economy works! The great thing is, we can all cook up a storm in economics if we want to!