>>Fair enough. However, how many countries in economic
>>history have industrialized and become something
>>approximating decent middle-class societies under
>>these conditions? As far as I know, the answer is
>>zero.
>Yup.
>But to tell countries that they have to replicate the
conditions of
>nineteenth-century northwest Europe, or the
nineteenth-century
>settler colonies, or late-twentieth century southern
Europe, or
>late-twentieth century East Asia--that is profoundly,
profoundly
>unhelpful...
rt: No one is telling countries any of this. As I said, I don't have the answer, nor do I believe there is ONE answer. The most important thing is that, to the greatest degree possible, countries should be free to set their own policies. No one should be "telling" them to do anything. They aren't children.
Now, if I had to make tentative suggestions for, say, South America, I might advise them to default on their debts, form an economic union with protective tariffs on outside products, ignore outside copyrights, and create laws discouraging capital export. While they're at it, they might try thoroughgoing land reform and less killing of union organizers.
This is obviously not on the agenda, however. Extremely powerful institutions are telling countries that they must follow the neoliberal model. But if I understand you correctly, you agree that there is no country in the history of the world that has become a decent middle class society under neoliberal conditions.
So my question for you is, why should countries be compelled to do something that has no track record of success?
>>From my naive perspective, all first world countries
>>seem to share these characteristics:
>>
>>1) They industrialized under far more favorable
>>conditions, with fewer competitors and less ravaged
>>environments.
>>2) They nurtured and protected infant industries via
>>many measures. They continue to do so today.
>>3) They developed empires that helped their
>>development immeasurably (England, etc.) or were in
>>privileged positions within an empire (South Korea,
>>etc.).
>>4) They blatantly disregarded intellectual property
>>laws.
>I'd disagree with (3): Germany never had an Empire,
for example...
rt: No, Germany did have an empire, although it was smaller than England's, France's, etc., and Germany possessed it for less time. For instance, present day Tanzania, Cameroon, and Namibia are all former German colonies. Imperial competition was a big part of the leadup to World War I, with Germany struggling for its own place in the imperial sun. Afterwards, most of Germany's colonies were taken away under the Treaty of Versailles, and redistributed to the victors.
As far as I know, there are no exceptions to #3.
Also, I don't mean to be snippy -- and maybe you aren't generally guilty of this -- but economists seem to know a lot about abstract theory, and very little about actual history. For instance, in present day Tanzania in the early 20th century, Germany slaughtered a huge number of Africans -- 100,000 or more -- because the Africans wanted to grow food for themselves rather than cotton for export.
Is it a coincidence that neoliberalism demands the same sort of policies today, although with less wholesale killing? I would say it's not. But the more important point is that I'd guess you don't even know this happened. Why is that? Isn't the Tanzania massacre part of economics? Or to take something on an even larger scale, how about the deaths of ~10 million in the Congo in the late 19th century? Do economics students study that? And if not, why not?
>And lots more countries have nurtured
>infant industries than have
>successfully industrialized...
rt: Not every country that has nurtured infant industries has successfully industrialized. So that's not the only piece of the puzzle. But what I said is that no countries have successfully industrialized that HAVE NOT done so. Moreover, they continue to do so today. Certainly the US does -- and we would never in a million years allow the IMF to force us to do otherwise.
Back to you, Professor DeLong. (Or anyone.)
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