Underdevelopment

About: Underdevelopment is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 4545 publications have been published within this topic receiving 86860 citations.

The economics of industrial innovation

Abstract: Part 1 Rise of science-related technology: introduction evolutionary theory in economics and technical change process innovations materials innovations product and system innovation paradigm change. Part 2 Innovations and the firms: the microeconomics of innovation success and failure, the role of marketing and user-producer networks innovation, size of firm, economies of scale and scope uncertainty, project evaluation and finance of innovation, management strategy and theory of the firm. Part 3 Macroeconomics of innovation - science, technology and economic growth globalization and multinational corporations underdevelopment and catching up. Part 4 Innovation and public policies: market failure and aspects of public support for innovation technical change, employment and skills environmental issues technological assessment. Appendix: measurement and definitions.

Globalization and its Discontents

Abstract: In this issue of the journal, William Robinson offers his analysis of the rise of transnational elites emerging outside of the traditional frame of nation-based capitalism. What is significant, in large part, is that unlike their national-capital predecessors, this new cadre has little concern for all that we refer to as social reproduction, industrialization, and local development. In its place, argues Robinson, are elites guided by a definition of global development rooted in the expansion of global markets and the integration of national economies into a global capitalist reality. This picture is a logical extension of a narrative that takes capitalism from a period of internationalization to globalization, and while the distinction between these two periods of capitalist development remains somewhat unclear we can agree significant changes are underway. The pages of this journal have recently explored the nature of class politics in globalization (Berberoglu, 2009; Kollmeyer, 2003; and Sakellaropoulos, 2009), the reconceptualization of globalization through a gender lens (Acker, 2004; Gottfried, 2004; and Ng, 2004), the impact of globalization on workers (Archibald, 2009a, 2009b) and the way the rhetoric of the core penetrates other regions of a globalizing economy (Barahona, 2011). Robinson’s article, and the critical exchange between Robinson and commentators in this issue, shifts our attention away from what we mean by globalization and its impact, and towards the question of who now manages this new global economy and what that means. The neoliberal agenda, and apparently the focus of transnational elites, is the expansion and reliance on ‘the market’ and a return to pure laissez-faire practices. The role of markets is the central piece, for example, in the current efforts to restructure the failing economies in Europe and the underpinning of the criticism that markets should be freed from the fetters of government regulations that introduce inefficiencies and are to blame for the economic ills that have befallen the major capitalist economies of the world (Fuchs, 2010). We now know all too well, so we are told, that a correction requires a heavy dose of austerity and the shrinking of the social supports provided by national governments. Otherwise local economies will fail to participate in the growing global economy and nations will fall into unimaginable poverty. The writings of Andre Gunder Frank (especially 1966, 1971) foreshadow the current argument, though I am certain not in the way he would have imagined. For Frank, while post-World War II capitalist countries may have been undeveloped at some point, the rest of the post-colonial world suffered from underdevelopment – that is, from a process that maintained poverty and economic hardship as a result of their relationships with so-called modern capitalist countries. The very forces of capitalism instituted well-documented practices of extracting resources and maintaining low wages in order to increase profits (practices that persist today, if not in the same form). At the same time, to ‘encourage’ development, governments and global financial institutions like the IMF and World Bank provided huge loans so that these countries could ‘afford’ to modernize rapidly. These loans were accompanied by massive intervention 440404 CRS0010.1177/0896920512440404EditorialCritical Sociology 2012

The Development of Underdevelopment

Abstract: We cannot hope to formulate adequate development theory and policy for the majority of the world's population who suffer from underdevelopment without first learning how their past economic and social history gave rise to their present underdevelopment. Yet most historians study only the developed metropolitan countries and pay scant attention to the colonial and underdeveloped lands. For this reason most of our theoretical categories and guides to development policy have been distilled exclusively from the historical experience of the European and North American advanced capitalist nations.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Human Development in Poor Countries: On the Role of Private Incomes and Public Services

Abstract: Development is often taken to mean rising incomes. Discussions of the "goals of development" now often emphasize the reduction of poverty, rather than raising average incomes per se. The role of social services—particularly basic health and education—has also received greater emphasis in the 1980s, viewed mainly as instruments for raising the incomes of the poor. But, in all these approaches, income growth of one sort or another is what development is all about. A rather different view of the meaning of development has recently found expression in the 1990 Human Development Report (HRD) produced by the United Nations Development Programme. A conceptual underpinning for this approach can be found in the work of Amartya Sen. The essence of this view is that human development—what people can actually do and be—is the overriding purpose of economic development. Underdevelopment is viewed as the lack of certain basic capabilities, rather than lack of income per se. We do not aim here to advocate one of these approaches over the other, but rather to explore their implications for development policy. For instance, what does the human development approach imply about the role of economic growth and, in particular, about reducing income poverty? Should development priorities shift toward the provision of public services in poor countries, even if such a shift is at the expense of income growth?