[This post was delayed because it was too long (55824 bytes instead of
the limit of 4 bytes) and forwarded to the list by Hans Ehrbar]
[from a work in progress.SP]
Notes on Development Theory Sam Pawlett
Introduction
Development theory took off after WWII with the first wave of
decolonization. The problems
facing the newly independent countries became of concern to
intellectuals who wanted to understand the plight of the newly
independent countries as well as rationalize imperialism. Such problems
had in the past really only been the preserve of those working in the
Marxist tradition because of the events and issues raised by the 1917
Russian revolution. Because of the small size of the Russian industrial
working class and the agrarian nature of the economy, the Russian
revolutionaries were concerned with problems of underdevelopment and the
problem of building socialism in a backward country where Marx and his
followers said that socialism would (not could) take place in advanced
industrialized capitalist countries. Russian and German Marxists like
Pleknakov and Kautsky argued that socialism could only be built on
nations that had developed capitalist economies. Only a high level of
productivity could support socialist social relations . . .
The central concern of the U.S. and British governments and their
intellectual servants were that the newly independent countries might
fall into the Soviet sphere of influence. The USSR presented an
alternative model of development since in 1917 it was in a similar
position with a poor, technologically backward, mostly agricultural
peasant society. The USSR had industrialized quickly through a period of
"socialist primitive accumulation," had raised standard of living,
advanced technologically and maintained a high degree of economic
self-sufficiency. The hope for leaders of newly independent countries
was that these countries could repeat the Soviet experience with a
minimum of the immense costs suffered by the peoples of the USSR.
The newly independent countries were to be kept out of the Soviet
sphere so the raw materials, oil and cheap labor supply could come to
benefit the U.S. and Britain. This was to be done through a mix of
covert action, military intervention, a range of macroeconomic
instruments especially including the World Bank and IMF.
What is Development?
Development theories are closely bound to the development of
capitalism itself. The content of the theories themselves, reflect the
degree of development of the productive forces and the state of the
class struggle. The theory itself emerges as something to be explained,
i.e. development theories are both the cause and effect of the reality
they purport to explain. As Marx and Engels explained:
"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas i.e.
the class which is the ruling material force of society is at the same
time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of
material production at its disposal, consequently, also control the
means of mental production, so that the ideas of those who lack the
means of mental production are on the whole subject to it. The ruling
ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant
material relations, the dominant material relations grasped as ideas;
hence of the relations which make the one class the ruling one,
therefore, the ideas of its dominance."(GI,59)
The classical economists including Marx had no conception of
"development" as we speak of today, they only sought to understand
pre-capitalistic economic formations as they led eventually to
capitalism. At the time there were only capitalist societies and non or
pre-capitalist societies. The issue was to explain how pre-capitalist
societies became capitalist. Marx ridiculed the traditional notion of
original sin' in primitive accumulation where capitalist relations
arise from frugal and hardworking individuals(the capitalist class) and
lazy individuals (the proletariat.)(Capital V.1p873ff.) In Marx's view
capitalism came into being through the seperation of workers from the
means of production such that all they has to sell was their own labor.
The full title of Adam Smith's most famous book "The Wealth of
Nations" is "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of
Nations". A concept of development is inherent in the title. Smith is
interested in how nations become wealthy and stay that way. For Smith,
the development of society occurs through the division of labor and the
application of technology leading to an increase in the productivity of
labor. Smith held a theory of value where he believed that the wealth of
a nation is equal to what it produces each year. To increase wealth, one
must increase production. Economic activity is the physical production
of material goods. Further, productive work is such that allows only for
the accumulation of
