Defining Capitalism

Brad DeLong delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU
Wed Jul 4 06:09:11 PDT 2001



> > >No country every developed via free trade. Not the UK.
> > >Not the US. Not Korea .....
>>
>> No country developed by practicing free trade
>
>Hong Kong?
>
>dd
>

Lots of countries developed via export-led growth. The argument that developing countries should provide protected domestic markets in consumer goods (not capital goods) to infant industries in order to jump-start industrialization is a serious one. The argument that a developing country should manage its imports in order to make sure they are used for expanding production rather than elite consumption is a serious one. (But so is the argument that such controls tend to lead to large-scale corruption.)

But the argument that the industrial core is doing the periphery a favor by shutting out its textile products is not a serious one.

Brad DeLong



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