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Collective Self-Reliance of Developing Countries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Surendra J. Patel
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The world economy is now in intense agony — sharper than ever experienced since the War. The international monetary order, carefully constructed with gold as its lynchpin and fixed exchange rates, is in shambles. Trade patterns laboriously built up since 1945 are facing their biggest challenge. The entire framework of domestic policies constructed on the assumption of steady growth — or only minor recessions — is now being questioned. Expectations of decline in industrial output ranging over io per cent are no longer restricted to whispers at cocktails — they are officially pronounced. Unemployment in the developed countries, some say, could swell nearly anywhere up to io per cent — a level which only a year ago was thought to be impossible. The identification of economic power with international liquidity has been all but destroyed in the wake of the oil price rise. Prices of other primary commodities are falling rapidly.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 4 , December 1975 , pp. 569 - 583
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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References

Page 570 note 1 Aristotle, Politics, bk. I, ch. II, para. I.

Page 572 note 1 These estimates, particularly those for the nineteenth century and before, are to be treated as illustrative indicators of order of magnitude only.

Population: the data up to 1850 are from W. S., and Woytinsky, E. S., World Population and Production (New York, 1953),Google Scholar and after 1850 are from United Nations statistical sources. Income: the 1850 and 1960 figures are from Surendra Patel, J., ‘Economic Distance between Nations: its origin, measurement and outlook’, in The Economic Journal (London), LXXIV, 03 1964;Google Scholar the pre-1850 estimates are purely notional, being based on the simple assumption that the rock-bottom level of income per capita at the time of Christ's birth could not have been lower than one-half of the world average in 1800, and that by 1650 this level might have risen by about 50 per cent.

Industrial output: for details on the methodology of constructing this index, see Patel, Surendra J., ‘Rates of Industrial Growth in the last Century’, in Economic Development and Cultural Change (Chicago), IX, 3, 04 1961.Google Scholar The pre-1800 figures are based on the simplistic assumption that income and industrial output increased at about the same rate; the post-1958 data are from United Nations sources; and the 1975 figures are estimates.

Page 574 note 1 These calculations are based on the sources cited for Table I. The figures are to be used as orders of magnitude only.

Page 575 note 1 Sources: the L. of N. series (1896–1929) are from League of Nations, Industrialisation and Foreign Trade (Geneva, 1945), p. 13Google Scholar the author's estimates are based on ‘Rates of Industrial Growth in the Last Century’, in Economic Development and Cultural Change, IX, 3, April 1961, and recent national statistics; and the U.N. series are taken from U.N. statistical yearbooks.

Page 576 note 1 The Group was rather loose in its method of ‘rounding out’ growth rates. For instance if total income was to grow at 2·5 per cent and population at 1·25 per cent annually, income per capita would grow at only 1·25 per cent; and it is hard to round this to ‘about 2 per cent’.

Page 579 note 1 The income transferred through brain-drain – or reverse transfer of technology — from developing regions to the United States in 1970 alone was estimated at some $3·7 billion, or higher than the $3·I billion of U.S. official development assistance in the same year. See U.N.C.T.A.D., ‘Reverse Transfer of Technology: economic effects of the outflow of trained personnel from developing countries (brain-drain)’; TD/B/AC. 11/25, p. 5.

Page 580 note 1 For details, see Patel, Surendra J., ‘Some Implications of the Structural Change in Exports of Developing Countries’, in Foreign Trade Review (New Delhi), 01–03 1971.Google Scholar