a lot of places have had slavery without becoming rich countries. The Southern United States is a classic example: it had slavery up until 1865, but that slavery didn't help the economic or capitalist development of the area. Most of the hard work that the slaves did was almost totally wasted as far as the South was concerned. So the South was a economic backwater for a century or so after 1865, when Northern businesses started relocating to the South to avoid unions, etc. (To the extent that slavery promoted economic development, it mostly helped England and (to a lesser extent), the North.)
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
> Michael Perelman writes:
>
> Oh, yes. And there was slavery.
>
> On Tue, Jun 25, 2002 at 10:26:12AM -0700, Devine, James wrote:
> > this article makes sense, but it should be stressed that
> tariffs were
> > necessary but not sufficient to promoting the U.S. rise to
> the top. In
> > addition, the U.S. benefited from having cheap access to
> raw materials and
> > land (at the expense of the native population), a large
> domestic market
> > (allowing a lot of competition within the country, so that
> monopolies didn't
> > take over right away), and a relatively small technological
> gap vis-a-vis
> > its competitors (England). (And it goes without saying that
> the U.S. wasn't
> > dominated by any external power.) I don't think that the
> currently poor
> > countries have all of these conditions.
> >
> > (font = Arial 11)
> >
> > Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
> >
> > --------------------
> >
> > History debunks the free trade myth
> >
> > Ha-Joon Chang
> > Monday June 24, 2002
> > The Guardian
> >
> > You are visiting a developing country as a policy analyst. It has
> > the highest average tariff rate in the world. Most of the
> > population cannot vote, and vote buying and electoral fraud are
> > widespread.
> >
> > The country has never recruited a single civil servant through an
> > open process. Its public finances are precarious, with loan
> > defaults that worry investors. It has no competition law, has
> > abolished its shambolic bankruptcy law, and does not acknowledge
> > foreigners' copyrights. In short, it is doing everything against
> > the advice of the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO and the
> > international investment community.
> >
> > Sounds like a recipe for development disaster? But no. The country
> > is the US - only that the time is around 1880, when its income
> > level was similar to that of Morocco and Indonesia today. Despite
> > wrong policies and sub-standard institutions, it was then one of
> > the fastest-growing - and rapidly becoming one of the richest -
> > countries in the world.
> >
> > Especially in relation to trade policy. Many top economists,
> > including Adam Smith, had been telling Americans for over a
> > century that they should not protect their industries - exactly
> > what today's development orthodoxy tells developing countries.
> >
> > But the Americans knew exactly what the game was. Many knew all
> > too clearly that Britain, which was preaching free trade to their
> > country, became rich on the basis of protectionism and subsidies.
> > Ulysses Grant, the Civil war hero and US president between 1868
> > and 1876, remarked that "within 200 years, when America has gotten
> > out of protection all that it can offer, it too will adopt free
> > trade". How prescient - except that his country did rather better
> > than his prediction.
> >
> > The fact is that rich countries did not develop on the basis of
> > the policies and institutions they now recommend to developing
> > countries. Virtually all of them used tariff protection and
> > subsidies to develop their industries. In the earlier stages of
> > their development, they did not even have basic institutions such
> > as democracy, a central bank and a professional civil service....
> >
> >
>
> --
> Michael Perelman
> Economics Department
> California State University
> Chico, CA 95929
>
> Tel. 530-898-5321
> E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
