Poverty from the Wealth of Nations| June 2000
Amazon.com editorial summary:
Shahid Alam presents an analysis of the evolution of global disparities that goes beyond the earlier neo-Marxist critiques of global capitalism. He inserts two additional asymmetries into the global economy--those created by 'unequal races' and unequal states. The author analyzes not only the power of markets, but the powers that shaped these markets. More importantly he demonstrates that loss of sovereignty retarded industrialization, human capital formation and economic growth.
Amazon.com reader reviews:
[5/5 Stars] Reviewer: Will Podmore (see more about me) from London United Kingdom
Alam's brilliant and original book studies the growing polarisation between the economically advanced and lagging countries since 1760. He marshals extensive cross-country evidence and concludes, "The results showed a strong positive correlation between sovereignty and industrialisation."
As he writes, "Sovereignty did matter! Countries which had it would grow faster than countries which did not. The logic of it is simple. Colonization of lagging countries led, via forced integration, to the loss of manufactures, a shrinking comparative advantage in primary production, and the displacement of indigenous capital, skills and enterprises; it also led to monopolization and direct appropriation of their resources. Only sovereign lagging countries - free to structure their integration into the world economy - could avoid or minimize the adverse consequences of integration. Ergo, loss of sovereignty retarded economic growth. ... Countries will structure their international relations to develop manufactures and indigenous capital, enterprises and technological capabilities; they will impose at the outset, or gradually, policies that regulate the entry of imports and foreign capital, labor and enterprises. ... These asymmetries ensure that loss of sovereignty will produce lower levels of industrialisation, lower levels of productivity in the subsistence sector, lower levels of human capital, lower rates of taxation and public expenditure and, finally, lower growth rates of per capita income."
Countries winning their independence after 1945 achieved substantial increases in their manufacturing industry. 1980 saw the imperial counterattack; the international financial institutions, egged on by the key capitalist states, attacked the lagging countries and reimposed dependency. The Soviet Union's demise orphaned the lagging countries; they lost the most powerful counterweight to the USA.
World Bank and IMF policy packages are identical to the EU's demands: end fiscal deficits, privatise industries and services, open government contracts to foreign firms, end state subsidies, remove controls on capital accounts of the balance of payments, end barriers to foreign enterprises' entry.
Without economic sovereignty, all other forms of sovereignty are shadows. The economy is the root of sovereignty: without control over how we work and produce, we are slaves.
Governments and Markets in Economic Development Strategies | June 1989
Amazon.com editorial summary:
"There has been a long-running debate among development economists with regard to the role of governments in the phenomenal economic growth of the East Asian countries. On the one hand, neoclassical economists maintain that their success can be attributed to the laissez-faire approach adopted by the respective governments and the export-oriented policies aimed at achieving more efficient allocation of resources through the harmonization of domestic and world prices. On the other hand, other development specialists challenge this line of argument and counter that these countries have employed active interventionist policies to promote selected export industries by creating dynamic comparative advantage in them. Alam attempts to substantiate the latter thesis with respect to three East Asian countries, namely Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. This volume consist of five chapters. The first is exclusively concerned with the theoretical discourse between the two schools of thought. The next three chapters relate to the case studies of the three countries. The last chapter tries to answer the question whether the export-oriented strategy, so successful to these countries, can be adopted by other developing countries with an equal chance of success. The book is rather eclectic with no tables or quantification. The writing style is concise and to the point. Appropriate for academic collections."
