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Development: Theoretical Rebirth… Or Smiling Recolonization?

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Confronting Mainstream Economics for Overcoming Capitalism

Part of the book series: Marx, Engels, and Marxisms ((MAENMA))

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Abstract

Development economics, as an autonomized branch of general economics striving to study how a poor country can “develop,” has its modern origins in the 1940s and 1950s. It arose from a double differentiation, by rejecting both standard neoclassical economics and Keynesian economics (dominant over the period 1945–1975 approximately). This chapter intends to show how neoclassicism has absorbed development economics as one of its own components, but also how the current mainstream is now prisoner of a very deep theoretical crisis. We shall also see in what sense its domination in the element of theory must be understood as inseparable from that of neoliberalism over the practice of development.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This chapter has been written from the following two articles: Herrera (2004a, 2006a).

  2. 2.

    Krugman (1993). A “leftist” neoclassical, Krugman, is here complimenting and paying homage to three “right-wing” neoclassicals, authors—“progressive” authors to the point of defining corruption as a “sister activity of taxes”—Murphy et al. (1989).

  3. 3.

    Rosenstein-Rodan (1943). Also see: Dessus and Herrera (1999, 2000).

  4. 4.

    Krugman (1993, 1995).

  5. 5.

    Hirschman (1958).

  6. 6.

    Krugman (1989, 1990).

  7. 7.

    For an introduction to the capitalist world system theories: Herrera (2001).

  8. 8.

    Read, for example, Kalecki (1986, 1993) and Lange (1967).

  9. 9.

    See, in particular, Prebisch (1973), Furtado (2003), Marini (1969), Mahalanobis (1955), and Amin (1993).

  10. 10.

    Massé (1965).

  11. 11.

    Even a reactionary economist like Guillaumont (1985) admitted this.

  12. 12.

    Read here: Nakatani and Herrera (2007).

  13. 13.

    See, for example, Krueger et al. (1981).

  14. 14.

    International Monetary Fund (2003). Read also the IMF “anti-corruption guide,” available on: http://www.imf.org/external/np/gov/guide/eng/index.htm.

  15. 15.

    Regarding the IMF’s mandate to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism (known as “AML/CFT”), see here: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2008/POL073108A.htm.

  16. 16.

    World Bank (1994). See the Worldwild Governance Indicators on: http://data.worldbank.org/data-catalog/worldwide-governance-indicators.

  17. 17.

    Respectively: http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/ourwork/democraticgovernance/overview.html; http://www.adb.org/themes/governance/; http://idbdocs.iadb.org/wsdocs/getdocument.aspx?docnum=1555501; http://www.oecd.org/governance/; and http://www.ebrd.com/pages/about/policies/governance.html.

  18. 18.

    Gazier and Herrera (2002).

  19. 19.

    Tullock (1993). Before that, from the same: Tullock (1967). And even before, of course: Buchanan and Tullock (1961). Also: Stigler (1971, 2003). Without forgetting: Krueger (1974).

  20. 20.

    Read on this subject the speech given in Davos in 1999 by the Seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Atta Annan. As well as: http://www.unglobalcompact.org/.

  21. 21.

    Richter (2003).

  22. 22.

    Sachs (2005). See: Herrera (2006b).

  23. 23.

    UNICEF (2001) See: http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/monee8/eng/5.pdf.

  24. 24.

    Herrera (2004b, c).

  25. 25.

    Arrow and Debreu (1954). Also: Debreu (1959).

  26. 26.

    See: Guerrien (1996a).

  27. 27.

    For instance, if a nation establishes a minimum wage for workers, will this lead to an increase in unemployment?

  28. 28.

    Adelman and Robinson (1978), Devarajan and Rodrik (1991), and Bourguignon et al. (1983). Later: Bourguignon et al. (2008).

  29. 29.

    Read: Lewis (1955), Kuznets (1966), and Myrdal (1968).

  30. 30.

    Todaro (1982).

  31. 31.

    Schultz (1968). Also: Becker (1964).

  32. 32.

    Herrera (2010).

  33. 33.

    Azariadis and Drazen (1990).

  34. 34.

    Kaldor (1961, 1982).

  35. 35.

    Goodwin (1967).

  36. 36.

    Goodwin (1983).

  37. 37.

    Aghion and Howitt (1992, 1998, 2005).

  38. 38.

    Bukharin (1972 [1914]).

  39. 39.

    Read here: Sonnenschein (1972, 1973).

  40. 40.

    Mantel (1974).

  41. 41.

    Debreu (1974). See, before that, by the same: Debreu (1959, 1962).

  42. 42.

    Lucas (1981), Kydland and Prescott (1982), and Long and Plosser (1983).

  43. 43.

    For an internal criticism, but clearly insufficient: Summers (1986).

  44. 44.

    An example: Naoussi and Tripier (2012).

  45. 45.

    Hayek (1953, p. 34).

  46. 46.

    North and Thomas (1973).

  47. 47.

    Such analyses are at the antipodes of the Marxist ones. For example, Soboul (2014). Also: Nicolas (2002).

  48. 48.

    Fogel (1964). Or: Fogel and Engerman (1971).

  49. 49.

    Read instead: Bénot (2006 [1992]). And: Dorigny and Zins (2009).

  50. 50.

    Nietzsche (1899, p. 390).

  51. 51.

    Stiglitz (1974).

  52. 52.

    Williamson (1975).

  53. 53.

    See the preface to the French edition of: Von Mises (1938).

  54. 54.

    Source: extract from the personal page of X. Sala-i-Martín (available at: http://www.columbia.edu/%~23).

  55. 55.

    For a demonstration radically opposed to the neoclassical position, see: Herrera and Long (2019).

  56. 56.

    On this issue, see: Barro and Sala-i-Martín (1992, 1995, 1997).

  57. 57.

    Abramovitz (1986). More recently, Acemoğlu, Johnson and Robinson (2005).

  58. 58.

    Keefer and Knack (1995) and Knack (1996).

  59. 59.

    This is what suggested, for example, Baumol et al. (1989).

  60. 60.

    Delong (1989).

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    Rémy Herrera

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Herrera, R. (2022). Development: Theoretical Rebirth… Or Smiling Recolonization?. In: Confronting Mainstream Economics for Overcoming Capitalism. Marx, Engels, and Marxisms. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05851-6_3

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