Sowing Dragons

Brad De Long delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU
Sat Apr 8 16:33:50 PDT 2000



>On Sat, 8 Apr 2000, Brad De Long wrote:
>
>> And the big question is: Why do developmental states work so well in
>> East Asia and western Europe, and appear to work so badly (India,
>> Argentina, et cetera) elsewhere?
>
>Probably because, to borrow a Marxish phrase, superstructures matter. All
>the late industrializing stars experienced massive social crisis or
>conflict, and were located on the borderzones between the battling
>superpowers. Expropriation at one's doorstep seems to wonderfully
>concentrate the minds of commercial elites.
>
>-- Dennis

So that if Brazil were to go Stalinist, elites all over the rest of South America would suddenly recognize the benefits of soft rule, civil procedure, social democracy, and policies aimed at growing the pie rather than making sure the non-elite are kept away from it?

Could well be.

But the problem is that we then need to figure out how to create one strong, aggressive, capable--but not too strong, aggressive or capable--regime on each continent...

<a smily face seems inappropriate; the "joke" is just too grim....>

Brad DeLong



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list