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A WIN-WIN MODEL OF DEVELOPMENT: HOW INDIAN ECONOMICS REDEFINED UNIVERSAL DEVELOPMENT FROM AND AT THE MARGINS, 1870–1905

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2021

Maria Bach
Maria Bach*
Affiliation:
Maria Bach: Université de Lausanne
*
Maria.Bach@unil.ch
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Abstract

In this article, I argue that looking at lesser known intellectuals can help the history of economics to uncover new ways of seeing the world. My focus is the beginnings of “Indian economics” and its conceptualization of development. The Indian economists, despite their elite status in India, were from an imperial context where they were never considered economists. Studies throughout the twentieth century continued to treat them only as nationalists, rarely as contributors to economic knowledge. My research gives agency to these economists. I show how the position of Indian economics from the margins of discursive space offered a unique perspective that enabled it to innovate at the margins of development discourse. Indian economics redefined the concept of universality in the existing nineteenth-century idea of development by rejecting the widely accepted comparative advantage model and assertion that progress originated in Europe. Moreover, the economists pushed for universal industrialization, even for imperial territories, arguing that universal progress was beneficial to all.

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Journal of the History of Economic Thought , Volume 43 , Issue 4 , December 2021 , pp. 483 - 505
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© The History of Economics Society, 2021

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Footnotes

I would like to thank Valbona Muzaka and Jon Wilson for believing in my project and for giving me copious amounts of support through detailed edits and long discussions. I would also like to thank the two anonymous referees for their useful suggestions.

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