Sowing Dragons

[Brad De Long]

>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?
>
>Alice Amsden said that the Asian states were not afraid of 
>disciplining capital, while the LatAm ones were. As I remember her 
>argument, the Korean ruling class was very weak in the 1950s, and 
>there was no corrupt quasi-feudal landowner class plugged into the 
>global hierachy. So the state was able to step into the vacuum and 
>give orders rather than take them.
>
>Doug

And what makes a state able to give orders? And what makes a state 
*wish* to give orders that accelerate the pace of economic 
development--rather than simply to transfer all property to the 
state's functionaries and their relatives?

Deep questions to which I do *not* know the answers.

Brad DeLong