Revolution in International Development

"to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design"
--  FA Hayek

Alex Singleton writes a barnstorming piece outling the need for a revolution in international development thinking, from top-down to bottom-up approaches.

For too long the Left has held a monopoly over people's hearts and minds when its comes to international development. It is true that the Make Poverty History campaign is a worthy campaign. It has done a great deal of good by putting Africa at the top of the agenda But the fact it is wedded to outdated trade ideas about protecting infant industries and top-down approaches to aid shows how free marketeers have failed to influence the public debate.

Owen Barder responds. Both Alex and Owen claim to agree, and their positions are in many ways similar. If one has to pick sides, here's a rule of thumb for taking a position in an intellectual debate:

• I suggest going with the entrepreneur over the bureaucrat
• Go with the person most familiar with his opponents position
• Internal consistency is important (but as a judgment of the individual, rather than their argument)

Finally, allow me to provide a brief history of the most important events in the history of economic thought over the past few decades:

1970s: Keynesianism doesn't work (Hayek was right)
1980s: Communism doesn't work (Hayek was right)
1990s: Development policy doesn't work (Hayek was right)

Comments

[Jim]

"Development policy doesn't work"

Some development policies clearly have worked, so your point needs, er, developing.

[AJE]

Jim,

All i'm saying is that development economics is a better field now than in the 70s, and I suggest that the 90s was when things changed most dramatically.

You may be confident telling the world that the economics of development as practised in the 70s and 80s was working and should be continued, but any moderate/sensible economist would acknowledge that things have changed for the better.

[Jim]

"You may be confident telling the world that the economics of development as practised in the 70s and 80s was working and should be continued, but any moderate/sensible economist would acknowledge that things have changed for the better."

I'm not sure how you took my comment to mean that I'm stuck in the 1970s. But I took yours to mean that all "development policy" doesn't "work". If that's not what you mean, you might want to elaborate on your point.

And for what it's worth, I think a simplistic "70s/80s=bad" approach would be pretty foolish. The developmental reversals suffered by so many poor countries in the 70s and 80s were certainly not all self-inflicted, and the early 1970s was in fact a time of strong growth in the developing world, as most moderate/sensible development economists would surely acknowledge.

[AJE]

I took yours to mean that all "development policy" doesn't "work".

When I said "Development policy doesn't work" I meant "by and large, development policy received increasing attention and a general consensus agreed that previous methods were unsatisfactory."

...or something to that effect.

If i'd have meant to say that "all" development policy didn't work, i'd have said that - I'm confident that most readers would realise that i'm talking broadly.

I have the benefit of being a novice in this field, and therefore have no intellectual ties. I can survey what's happened and declare that my predecessors did a pretty shitty job.

But i welcome your request for elaboration, and understand that i'm neither making nor demonstrating my case at the moment - just confirming the thought behind that broad indictmnet of development economics.

To sum up, I think that there has been a shift in thinking, that it occured in the 90s, and that it was for the better.