Industrial Policy, East or West, for Development or War?

By Jomo Kwame SundaramNEEMRANA, Rajasthan, India, Mar 20 2024 (IPS) Developing countries wanting to pursue industrial policy were severely reprimanded by advocates of the ‘neoliberal’ Washington Consensus. Now, it is being deployed as a weapon in the new Cold War. Industrial policy vs colonialism Industrial policy is often seen as pioneered by Friedrich List. But List was inspired by George Washington’s first Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton. He advocated promoting manufacturing as the Industrial Revolution was beginning in England. Jomo Kwame SundaramFor List, post-colonial national development required tariffs. Despite a title deceptively similar to his earlier Principles of the Natural Economy, List’s Principles of the National Economy was quite different, clearly inspired by Hamilton. The Meiji Restoration started in 1868, after a quarter millennium of Tokugawa shogunate military rule. Meiji emperor rule was no mere palace coup but involved industrial policy to catch up with the already industrialising West. Meanwhile, public intellectuals like Dadabhai Naoroji and Sayyid Jamaluddin al-Afghani rejected Western imperialism. They criticised how parts of the global South were being transformed – and ruined – by Western imperialism. Half a century later, Harvard’s Josef Schumpeter rejected the idea that capitalism had become imperialistic. The Austrian economist insisted imperialism was a pre-capitalist atavism that capitalism’s ascendance would wipe ...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Development & Aid Economy & Trade Financial Crisis Global Global Geopolitics Health Sustainability TerraViva United Nations IPS UN Bureau Source Type: news