GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT

Introduction

In this article we focus on the concept of ‘growth and development’ as an approach that is sometimes erroneously associated with well- being. In classical economics it is normally assumed that when there is growth in an economy then development is simultaneously taking place. However, practical experience has shown that poverty does, quite often prevail in economies that are said to be experiencing growth. 

One explanation that has been advanced to this effect is that economic growth does not always translate into development or poverty alleviation. The major reason is that economic growth is not equitably distributed. In most cases the growth that accrues to an economy is just consumed by a small clique of the elite,  thereby not improving the quality of life of the poor. For this reason, it becomes necessary to revisit some of the theoretical constructs on this matter to help as explain the link between growth and development.

Literature

In the literature, economic growth theories are not often referred to as modernization theories. When this is done here, it is to stress their similarity to the classical sociological modernization theories, and thus to demonstrate the very fundamental conception of the development process as a modernization process which is embodied in both these otherwise different mainstreams of theory formation.

Modernization as part of growth and Development

Central to classical modernization theories is a contrasting of traditional and modernity. This applies to relations between countries, where these theories regard the Western industrial countries as modern and the developing countries as overwhelming traditional. It also applies within the individual developing countries, where certain sectors, institutions, practices, values and ways of life are considered as modern, others as traditional. The modernization theories are concerned primarily with how traditional values, attitudes, practices and socials structures break down and are replaced with more modern ones. What conditions promote and impede such a transformation and modernization process?

With these chosen starting points, it is surprising that modernization theories imply a positive assessment of the historical impact of imperialism and colonialism. Through economic dominance and political control, the industrial countries have actively tried to graft their own ‘modern’ and development-promoting cultures onto the backward societies. 

The problem in this context has been the backward countries’ development obstructing traditions, institutions, values and other internal conditions. In line with this retrospective evaluation of the role of imperialism, it is characteristic of the economic growth and modernization theorist that they claim a favourable net impact for the poor countries in their trade with the industrial countries, as well as for their interrelations with the industrialised world in other respects. It is from this positive relationship with the industrial North West that the impulses for economic change and progress in the underdeveloped societies must come.

The classical development economists

The pioneers in the field, who wrote from the late 1940s and up to the beginning of the 1960s, were not agreed on what the most important sources of growth were, or how the process was best set in motion. In what follows we shall look at some of the different views that have characterised the debate up to the present day.