Who Prospers? How Cultural Values Shape Economic and Political Success

[Boojatta]

Have any DUers read it?

From the introduction:

Marx interpreted capitalism in the nineteenth century as a process in which an affluent few exploited a miserable many. Lenin extended this interpretation to explain why a few countries were rich and many were poor: national affluence was the fruit of "imperialism." The poor countries were the exploited "proletariat" of the world's nations.

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Marxist-Leninist theory most directly influenced the Soviet Union, its Eastern European satellites, and China. But it also profoundly affected the Third World, most of whose countries achieved independence after World War II. "Imperialism" has been a seductive explanation of national poverty for these countries: patterns of authoritarian government, social injustice, and economic stagnation were the "obvious" consequences of colonial exploitation. Good government and social justice would be "obvious" consequences of independence. The "obvious" economic prescription: self-sufficiency through the creation of import-substitution industries that would break the chains of "dependency" on the rich countries, coupled with broad state intervention in the economy. The best-known spokesman for this prescription was the Argentine economist Raúl Prebisch <...>

The vast majority of Third World countries have experienced modest economic growth and sharp social inequalities under autocratic governments, and many of them have also experienced high levels of inflation, corruption, and misallocation of resources. The most inequitable countries in the world in terms of distribution of wealth, land, income, and opportunity are found in the Third World. The few who have done well economically and socially, most notably Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore, have ignored Prebisch's prescription and have focused their economic policies on exports to the world market. In the process, they have exposed the myth of "dependency" and its corollary that only the advanced countries can compete as manufacturers for the world market.