Palliative Development and the Great Theories of Development

Abstract

This book has emphasized the key role of the state in producing economic development in the Third World.

States in the Global South need to build physical infrastructure, develop human infrastructure, and do so in a way that does not compromise their financial sovereignty and lead to dependency on international creditors.

The State also needs to re-prioritize Palliative Development along with Transformational Development — by stimulating small labor intensive enterprises that provide services and employment to the local population. Such development strategies are very inexpensive and avoid debt and dependency on international creditors. Such a strategy provides many of the demand-increasing benefits of import substitution, without the distortions of traditional inward-looking IS policies.

This chapter completes the analysis by considering the larger theoretical impact of our findings. We discuss how the present arguments interface with the classic arguments of development sociology and heterodox development economics. Most of this non-neoclassical literature has emphasized the inherent limits of neoliberalism, the specifications of the successful creation of a developmentalist state, and the role of trade and globalization in promoting growth, or increasing the capacity of nations in the global South to survive in the face of global competition.