to be fair, most of what you are saying kaldor came to accept.i think quoting at length from the biography's chapter on his development economics is worthwhile. i personally don't much care whether good analysis can be traced back to uniquely keynesian framework. i find some keynesian concepts useful, and others not so much. same goes for most frameworks.
"He was less critical of the Marxian approach to underdevelopment, as set out in Paul Baran’s very influential book, The Political Economy of Growth (Baran 1957). Baran argued that poor countries were not really stuck in a ‘low-level equilibrium trap’ of an essentially Malthusian kind, as mainstream development theorists maintained. On the contrary, the ability of landlords to extract a large proportion of the peasants’ crops in the form of rent demonstrated that there was in fact a significant surplus product in even the least developed areas. The key to successful development, Baran urged, was to ensure that this surplus was used productively to expand industrial capacity, and not frittered away on luxury consumption by corrupt and parasitic elites. The ruling classes of the advanced capitalist countries (above all the United States) bene- fited from their ability to extract surplus from the underdeveloped world, and it was therefore in their interest to keep the poor countries poor and to support local rulers who would also be threatened by genuine economic development. In later life Kaldor could rarely be bothered to review books, and it is significant that he not only made an exception for Baran but also wrote an unusually long (six-page) review. He was severely critical of the American Marxist’s analysis of ‘monopoly capitalism’ in the rich countries. ‘By comparison the analysis in the second part of the book on the roots and morphology of backwardness is far more interesting, and it is here that Baran poses really important questions’ (Kaldor 1958a, p. 167)...In later writings Kaldor’s focus was slightly different. He now emphasized the role of social stratification in the countryside rather than the backwardness of an undifferentiated rural population. Latin American countries, in particular, had ‘a tremendous dead burden to carry in the form of maintaining the “idle rich” ’ (Kaldor 1964c, p. 486). In effect he was now accepting an important element in Baran’s analysis of underdevelopment – the detrimental effects of ‘the unbridled greed of an oligarchical ruling class’ (Kaldor 1963, p. 418). ‘Hence, while their average income per head is low, the fraction of their national income which accrues to a small minority of individuals is frequently greater than in the rich countries; and a much higher proportion of that income is devoted to personal consumption, and a lower propor- tion to savings’ (ibid., p. 411). In most poor countries taxation was also regressive, reflecting a ‘failure to tax the wealthier sectors of the community effectively’ (ibid., p. 412). When the rich did save, ‘the pattern of investment gets distorted. Too much of the capital accumu- lation is taken up by the expansion of industries and services which cater mainly to the rich’ (ibid., p. 415). Again citing the example of Japan, Kaldor argued that the most effective remedy was to increase taxes on land: This is because the land tax yields not just revenue but the right kind of revenue; it enlarges the supply of foodstuffs to urban areas, and thus the amount of employment that can be offered outside agricul- ture without creating inflation. It also promotes agricultural efficiency. It encourages the more efficient use of land as well as the transfer of ownership from relatively inefficient to efficient cultivators. (ibid., pp. 413–14) -- -Nathan Tankus _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
