Introduction

In this essay dedicated to the memory of Surendra Patel, we complement his work on technological transformation with a brief history of the origins and geographic spread of industrial capitalism and the ascendance and unravelling of Western hegemony. The financial crisis of 2008 has thrown into relief the contrast between the rapacious accumulation of wealth by large agglomerations of corporate economic power in the Global North and the dynamic national energy of the youthful populations of regions of the Global South. As the growing points of the world economy are shifting from North and West to South and East, Asia is reclaiming its historical importance. We attempt, in the words of Keynes, to ‘study the present in the light of the past for the purposes of the future’ (Johnson and Moggridge 1972: 173–74).

The Indomitable Optimis of Surendra Patel

I had the good fortune of meeting Surendra Patel a long time ago, in the early 1970s at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva, where he was working on technology transfer. We next met in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1975, at the International Development Research Centre–supported conference, the New International Economic Order, chaired by Gerry Helleiner. Surendra gave the keynote address, and I was invited to comment as a discussant. Krishna was present, and by that time we had formed a friendship that continued during the many years when Surendra and Krishna Patel were distinguished visiting professors at Saint Mary's University in Halifax.

The principal subject of Surendra Patel's lifelong research was technological transformation and development in the Global South, in the service of the United Nations, where he was director of the Technology Division of UNCTAD prior to his retirement in 1989. Patel was a model development economist who combined a detailed command of data with a profound commitment to radical change. It was his good fortune to receive his early training as a student in the United States under Nobel-laureate Simon Kuznets, an outstanding pioneer of development economics. I like to think that he learned a great deal from Kuznets of how intelligent conclusions can be reached from long-term projections of growth rates and an understanding of the power of compound interest.