How Rich Countries Got Rich…and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor
Winner of the prestigious Myrdal Prize 2008, this is an illuminating narrative history of economic development in the modern world.
Imprint: Anthem Press India
ISBN 9781843313335
January 2008
| 400 Pages
| 236 x 158mm / 9.3 x 6.2
| PRICE: Rs 495.00 |
About This Book
'Reinert asks the most fundamental questions about economic development, and proceeds to answer them with clear logic, a sweeping grasp of history and an immensely readable style.' —‘Frontline (The Hindu)’
Erik S. Reinert is a key figure in the growing worldwide movement against neo-classical economic theory. He argues that rich countries have developed through a combination of government intervention, protectionism and strategic investment, yet when it comes to today’s poorer nations, the orthodoxy insists on unqualified and absolute standards of free trade.
Reinert’s strongly revisionist history reveals how economic theory has long been torn between the continental Renaissance tradition and the free market ideas of English and later American economics. Our economies were founded on protectionism and state activism and could only later afford the luxury of free trade, so when our leaders come to lecture poor countries on the right road to riches, they do so in almost perfect ignorance of the real history of mass affluence. This book mounts a strong challenge and opens up the debate on why free trade is not the best possible answer for our hopes of worldwide prosperity.
Readership:
An essential work for students and scholars of economic theory and development studies.
Author Information
Erik S. Reinert is Chairman of The Other Canon Foundation, Norway, and Professor at Tallinn University of Technology. His books include ‘How Rich Countries Got Rich ... and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor’ (London, 2007), ‘The Origins of Development Economics: How Schools of Economic Thought Have Addressed Development’, edited with Jomo, K. S., (London, 2005), and ‘Globalization, Economic Development and Inequality: An Alternative Perspective’ (London, 2004).
Table of Contents
Foreword; Acknowledgements; List of Figures; Introduction; 1. Discovering Types of Economic Theories; 2. The Evolution of the Two Different Approaches; 3. Emulation: How Rich Countries Got Rich; 4. Globalization: the Arguments in Favour are also the Arguments Against; 5. Globalization and Primitivization: How the Poor Get Even Poorer; 6. Explaining Away Failure: Red Herrings at the End of History; 7. Palliative Economics: Why the Millennium Goals are a Bad Idea; 8. ‘Get the economic activities right’, or, the Lost Art of Creating Middle-Income Countries
