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An Institutional Critique of Development Concepts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Paul Streeten
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Extract

A critical examination of economic models soon leads to the examination of concepts, which are the bricks of which the models are built. Such an examination reveals that the bias in our view of economic and social reality enters before the model building begins, at the level where concepts are formed. The formulation of any concept, as I have tried to argue in my chapter on “The Use and Abuse of Models in Development Planning” (I), presupposes two procedures: aggregation of one set of items and isolation of this set from other sets. When we speak of a ‘tree’ we aggregate birches, beeches, elms, firs, larches, etc., into one category and, at the same time, differentiate them from bushes, shrubs, flowers, ferns, etc.

Type
La Planification Dans Des Nations Du Tiers Monde : Bilan Critique
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , May 1970 , pp. 69 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1970

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References

(1) In Martin, Kurt and Knapp, John (eds), The Teaching of Development Economics (London, Frank Cass, 1967)Google Scholar.

(2) (Hardmonsworth, Pelican Books 1968), vol. III. See infra, p. 107 sq.

(3) Op. cit. especially vol. II, chapter xxi.

(4) A similar identity was first used by Michael Lipton in a working paper for Myrdal's, Asian Drama in 04 1961Google Scholar. See also Barber, W. J., Some Questions about Labour Force Analysis in Agrarian Economies with particular reference to Kenya, East African Economic Review, 05 1966Google Scholar, and Myrdal, op. cit.

(5) Currie, L., Accelerating Development (New-York 1966), p. 168Google Scholar: “[…] there is a great deal of idleness, voluntary, and involuntary” [in Columbia]. In the Ivory Coast, the essence of the primitive methods of producing coffee is described by Prof. Barna as minimising the amount of work necessary for obtaining a coffee crop of any sort.

(6) The distinction is due to Florence, P. Sargant, The Logic of British and American Industry (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1953)Google Scholar. The application to the theory of controls was suggested by Michael Lipton to Gunnar Myrdal. Further subdivisions are possible by combining the general-specific and positive-negative distinctions with those in the table.

(7) Currie, , op. cit. p. 156Google Scholar: “[…] The relative high productivity of the machine, and the use of better techniques in commercial farming lower the return the colonial-type farmer can gain and make it even less practical for him to do all the costly things that would increase his productivity”.

(8) According to Myrdal's definition of the institutional approach it means that “history and politics, theories and ideologies, economic structures and levels, social stratification, agriculture and industry, population developments, health and education and so on must be studied not in isolation but in their mutual relationships” (Asian Drama, I, p. x).

(9) Kaldor, N., The Theory of Capital (F.A. Lutz and D.C. Hague), ch. x, p. 177Google Scholar.