- Hardcover: 352 pages
- Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd; illustrated edition edition (27 Aug 2004)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1858988918
- ISBN-13: 978-1858988917
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 16.4 x 3.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 4,604,764 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Description
Product Description
Evolutionary economics gained acceptance for the study of industrialized countries during the 1990s but has, as yet, contributed little to the study of world income inequality. The expert contributors gathered here approach underdevelopment and inequality from different evolutionary perspectives. I t is argued that the Schumpeterian processes of 'creative destruction' may take the form of wealth creation in one part of the globe and wealth destruction in another. Case studies explore and analyse the successful 19th century policies that allowed Germany and the United States to catch up with the UK and these are contrasted with two other case studies exploring the deindustrialization and falling real wages in Peru and Mongolia during the 1990s. The case studies and thematic papers together explore, identify and explain the mechanisms which cause economic inequality. Some papers point to why the present form of globalization increases poverty in many Third World nations. Members of the anti-globalization movement will find the explanations given in this book insightful, as will employees of international organizations due to the important policy messages. The theoretical interest within the book will appeal to development economists and evolutionary economists, and policymakers and politicians will find the explanations of the present failure of many small nations in the periphery invaluable.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This brilliant collection of essays is in four parts: the foundations of an alternative theoretical perspective; the strategy of success - 19th-century USA and Germany; the strategy of failure - late 20th-century deindustrialisation and the economics of retrogression; and technical change and the dynamics of income inequality. The contributors are from Britain, the USA, Norway, Germany, Estonia, Denmark and Peru.
The book's editor, Erik Reinert, Professor of Technology Governance at the Tallinn Technical University in Estonia, writes in his introduction, "Neither democracy, nor `good governance' or effective `national innovation systems' are likely to appear in a feudal production structure based on agricultural monoculture."
He cites the Swedish economist Johan Åkerman who wrote, "Capitalism, property rights, income distribution came to be considered the essential features, whereas the core contents of industrialism - technological change, mechanisation, mass production and its economic and social consequences - partly were pushed aside."
It is not foreign trade, the flow of goods and people, that civilises, but industry. As the great German economist Friedrich List wrote in 1841, "Manufactories and manufactures are the mothers and children of municipal liberty, of intelligence, of the arts and sciences, of internal and external commerce, of navigation and improvements in transport, of civilisation and of political power. They are the chief way of liberating agriculture from its chains ... The popular school [e.g. Adam Smith] has attributed this civilising effect to foreign trade, but in that it has confounded the mere exchanger with the originator." Reinert adds, "Deindustrialization, on the other hand, has been a corollary to economic disasters and massive reductions in human welfare."
In a brilliant chapter, Santiago Roca and Luis Simabuko, both of the Escuala Superior de Administración de Negocios, Lima, Peru, provide evidence to back Reinert's claim. They describe the 1990s counter-revolution in Peru, when the government withdrew support from industry and attacked the trade unions.
They write, "Deindustrialization of economic activities is intimately linked to declining standards of living. For the period 1950-97, for each additional percentage point of deindustrialization, per capita consumption fell by 2.6% while white-collar real salaries dropped by 5.4% and blue-collar wages by 7.4%. The impact on the manufacturing industry is just the opposite, since for each point of increased industrialization, per capita consumption grew by 4.2% and white-collar and blue-collar earnings rose 10.6 and 15.5% respectively." They note, "manufacturing specialization not only increases standards of living but has a proportionately larger impact on blue-collar wages, thus leading to a positive effect on income distribution."
In a superb study of the Mongolia disaster of the 1990s, Reinert shows how the cause was not global warming, as the Western press reported. The Mongolian government did what the World Bank ordered - which unleashed `vicious circles of poverty, institutional collapse and environmental degradation'. Between 1991 and 1995, 90% of its industrial production was destroyed and wages were halved.
The Roman empire's motto was `Vae victis' - `woe to the vanquished'. It is unlikely that the US economists and politicians who ordered this destruction of Mongolian industry did not know the difference between the postwar Morgenthau and Marshall Plans, one to reduce Germany to a pastoral economy, the other to rebuild its industry.
Reinert observes of the planned economies, "their inefficient manufacturing sector provided a much higher national standard of living than what capitalism with a decimated manufacturing sector does today in the same nations." As the UN Development Program's report Transition 1999 noted, the transition to capitalism has `literally been lethal for a great many people'.
The book's editor, Erik Reinert, Professor of Technology Governance at the Tallinn Technical University in Estonia, writes in his introduction, "Neither democracy, nor `good governance' or effective `national innovation systems' are likely to appear in a feudal production structure based on agricultural monoculture."
He cites the Swedish economist Johan Åkerman who wrote, "Capitalism, property rights, income distribution came to be considered the essential features, whereas the core contents of industrialism - technological change, mechanisation, mass production and its economic and social consequences - partly were pushed aside."
It is not foreign trade, the flow of goods and people, that civilises, but industry. As the great German economist Friedrich List wrote in 1841, "Manufactories and manufactures are the mothers and children of municipal liberty, of intelligence, of the arts and sciences, of internal and external commerce, of navigation and improvements in transport, of civilisation and of political power. They are the chief way of liberating agriculture from its chains ... The popular school [e.g. Adam Smith] has attributed this civilising effect to foreign trade, but in that it has confounded the mere exchanger with the originator." Reinert adds, "Deindustrialization, on the other hand, has been a corollary to economic disasters and massive reductions in human welfare."
In a brilliant chapter, Santiago Roca and Luis Simabuko, both of the Escuala Superior de Administración de Negocios, Lima, Peru, provide evidence to back Reinert's claim. They describe the 1990s counter-revolution in Peru, when the government withdrew support from industry and attacked the trade unions.
They write, "Deindustrialization of economic activities is intimately linked to declining standards of living. For the period 1950-97, for each additional percentage point of deindustrialization, per capita consumption fell by 2.6% while white-collar real salaries dropped by 5.4% and blue-collar wages by 7.4%. The impact on the manufacturing industry is just the opposite, since for each point of increased industrialization, per capita consumption grew by 4.2% and white-collar and blue-collar earnings rose 10.6 and 15.5% respectively." They note, "manufacturing specialization not only increases standards of living but has a proportionately larger impact on blue-collar wages, thus leading to a positive effect on income distribution."
In a superb study of the Mongolia disaster of the 1990s, Reinert shows how the cause was not global warming, as the Western press reported. The Mongolian government did what the World Bank ordered - which unleashed `vicious circles of poverty, institutional collapse and environmental degradation'. Between 1991 and 1995, 90% of its industrial production was destroyed and wages were halved.
The Roman empire's motto was `Vae victis' - `woe to the vanquished'. It is unlikely that the US economists and politicians who ordered this destruction of Mongolian industry did not know the difference between the postwar Morgenthau and Marshall Plans, one to reduce Germany to a pastoral economy, the other to rebuild its industry.
Reinert observes of the planned economies, "their inefficient manufacturing sector provided a much higher national standard of living than what capitalism with a decimated manufacturing sector does today in the same nations." As the UN Development Program's report Transition 1999 noted, the transition to capitalism has `literally been lethal for a great many people'.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1 review
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Brilliant attack on neo-liberalism
18 Nov 2008
Format:Paperback
This brilliant collection of essays is in four parts: the foundations of an alternative theoretical perspective; the strategy of success - 19th-century USA and Germany; the strategy of failure - late 20th-century deindustrialisation and the economics of retrogression; and technical change and the dynamics of income inequality. The contributors are from Britain, the USA, Norway, Germany, Estonia, Denmark and Peru.
The book's editor, Erik Reinert, Professor of Technology Governance at the Tallinn Technical University in Estonia, writes in his introduction, "Neither democracy, nor `good governance' or effective `national innovation systems' are likely to appear in a feudal production structure based on agricultural monoculture."
He cites the Swedish economist Johan Åkerman who wrote, "Capitalism, property rights, income distribution came to be considered the essential features, whereas the core contents of industrialism - technological change, mechanisation, mass production and its economic and social consequences - partly were pushed aside."
It is not foreign trade, the flow of goods and people, that civilises, but industry. As the great German economist Friedrich List wrote in 1841, "Manufactories and manufactures are the mothers and children of municipal liberty, of intelligence, of the arts and sciences, of internal and external commerce, of navigation and improvements in transport, of civilisation and of political power. They are the chief way of liberating agriculture from its chains ... The popular school [e.g. Adam Smith] has attributed this civilising effect to foreign trade, but in that it has confounded the mere exchanger with the originator." Reinert adds, "Deindustrialization, on the other hand, has been a corollary to economic disasters and massive reductions in human welfare."
In a brilliant chapter, Santiago Roca and Luis Simabuko, both of the Escuala Superior de Administración de Negocios, Lima, Peru, provide evidence to back Reinert's claim. They describe the 1990s counter-revolution in Peru, when the government withdrew support from industry and attacked the trade unions.
They write, "Deindustrialization of economic activities is intimately linked to declining standards of living. For the period 1950-97, for each additional percentage point of deindustrialization, per capita consumption fell by 2.6% while white-collar real salaries dropped by 5.4% and blue-collar wages by 7.4%. The impact on the manufacturing industry is just the opposite, since for each point of increased industrialization, per capita consumption grew by 4.2% and white-collar and blue-collar earnings rose 10.6 and 15.5% respectively." They note, "manufacturing specialization not only increases standards of living but has a proportionately larger impact on blue-collar wages, thus leading to a positive effect on income distribution."
In a superb study of the Mongolia disaster of the 1990s, Reinert shows how the cause was not global warming, as the Western press reported. The Mongolian government did what the World Bank ordered - which unleashed `vicious circles of poverty, institutional collapse and environmental degradation'. Between 1991 and 1995, 90% of its industrial production was destroyed and wages were halved.
The Roman empire's motto was `Vae victis' - `woe to the vanquished'. It is unlikely that the US economists and politicians who ordered this destruction of Mongolian industry did not know the difference between the postwar Morgenthau and Marshall Plans, one to reduce Germany to a pastoral economy, the other to rebuild its industry.
Reinert observes of the planned economies, "their inefficient manufacturing sector provided a much higher national standard of living than what capitalism with a decimated manufacturing sector does today in the same nations." As the UN Development Program's report Transition 1999 noted, the transition to capitalism has `literally been lethal for a great many people'.
The book's editor, Erik Reinert, Professor of Technology Governance at the Tallinn Technical University in Estonia, writes in his introduction, "Neither democracy, nor `good governance' or effective `national innovation systems' are likely to appear in a feudal production structure based on agricultural monoculture."
He cites the Swedish economist Johan Åkerman who wrote, "Capitalism, property rights, income distribution came to be considered the essential features, whereas the core contents of industrialism - technological change, mechanisation, mass production and its economic and social consequences - partly were pushed aside."
It is not foreign trade, the flow of goods and people, that civilises, but industry. As the great German economist Friedrich List wrote in 1841, "Manufactories and manufactures are the mothers and children of municipal liberty, of intelligence, of the arts and sciences, of internal and external commerce, of navigation and improvements in transport, of civilisation and of political power. They are the chief way of liberating agriculture from its chains ... The popular school [e.g. Adam Smith] has attributed this civilising effect to foreign trade, but in that it has confounded the mere exchanger with the originator." Reinert adds, "Deindustrialization, on the other hand, has been a corollary to economic disasters and massive reductions in human welfare."
In a brilliant chapter, Santiago Roca and Luis Simabuko, both of the Escuala Superior de Administración de Negocios, Lima, Peru, provide evidence to back Reinert's claim. They describe the 1990s counter-revolution in Peru, when the government withdrew support from industry and attacked the trade unions.
They write, "Deindustrialization of economic activities is intimately linked to declining standards of living. For the period 1950-97, for each additional percentage point of deindustrialization, per capita consumption fell by 2.6% while white-collar real salaries dropped by 5.4% and blue-collar wages by 7.4%. The impact on the manufacturing industry is just the opposite, since for each point of increased industrialization, per capita consumption grew by 4.2% and white-collar and blue-collar earnings rose 10.6 and 15.5% respectively." They note, "manufacturing specialization not only increases standards of living but has a proportionately larger impact on blue-collar wages, thus leading to a positive effect on income distribution."
In a superb study of the Mongolia disaster of the 1990s, Reinert shows how the cause was not global warming, as the Western press reported. The Mongolian government did what the World Bank ordered - which unleashed `vicious circles of poverty, institutional collapse and environmental degradation'. Between 1991 and 1995, 90% of its industrial production was destroyed and wages were halved.
The Roman empire's motto was `Vae victis' - `woe to the vanquished'. It is unlikely that the US economists and politicians who ordered this destruction of Mongolian industry did not know the difference between the postwar Morgenthau and Marshall Plans, one to reduce Germany to a pastoral economy, the other to rebuild its industry.
Reinert observes of the planned economies, "their inefficient manufacturing sector provided a much higher national standard of living than what capitalism with a decimated manufacturing sector does today in the same nations." As the UN Development Program's report Transition 1999 noted, the transition to capitalism has `literally been lethal for a great many people'.
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