GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT

Introduction

In
this article we focus on the concept of ‘growth and development’ as an approach
that is sometimes erroneously associated with well- being. In classical
economics it is normally assumed that when there is growth in an economy then
development is simultaneously taking place. However, practical experience has
shown that poverty does, quite often prevail in economies that are said to be
experiencing growth. 

One explanation that has been advanced to this effect is
that economic growth does not always translate into development or poverty
alleviation. The major reason is that economic growth is not equitably
distributed. In most cases the growth that accrues to an economy is just
consumed by a small clique of the elite,  thereby not improving the quality of
life of the poor. For this reason, it becomes necessary to revisit some of the
theoretical constructs on this matter to help as explain the link between
growth and development.

Literature

In
the literature, economic growth theories are not often referred to as
modernization theories. When this is done here, it is to stress their
similarity to the classical sociological modernization theories, and thus to
demonstrate the very fundamental conception of the development process as a
modernization process which is embodied in both these otherwise different
mainstreams of theory formation.

Modernization as part of growth and Development

Central
to classical modernization theories is a contrasting of traditional and
modernity. This applies to relations between countries, where these theories
regard the Western industrial countries as modern and the developing countries
as overwhelming traditional. It also applies within the individual developing
countries, where certain sectors, institutions, practices, values and ways of
life are considered as modern, others as traditional. The modernization
theories are concerned primarily with how traditional values, attitudes,
practices and socials structures break down and are replaced with more modern
ones. What conditions promote and impede such a transformation and
modernization process?

With
these chosen starting points, it is surprising that modernization theories
imply a positive assessment of the historical impact of imperialism and
colonialism. Through economic dominance and political control, the industrial
countries have actively tried to graft their own ‘modern’ and
development-promoting cultures onto the backward societies. 

The problem in this
context has been the backward countries’ development obstructing traditions,
institutions, values and other internal conditions. In line with this
retrospective evaluation of the role of imperialism, it is characteristic of
the economic growth and modernization theorist that they claim a favourable net
impact for the poor countries in their trade with the industrial countries, as
well as for their interrelations with the industrialised world in other
respects. It is from this positive relationship with the industrial North West
that the impulses for economic change and progress in the underdeveloped
societies must come.

The classical development economists

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p style=”line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;”>The pioneers in the field, who wrote from
the late 1940s and up to the beginning of the 1960s, were not agreed on what
the most important sources of growth were, or how the process was best set in
motion. In what follows we shall look at some of the different views that have
characterised the debate up to the present day.