Kicking Away the Ladder. Development Strategy in Historical Perspective

Table 3.7
Where were the now-developed countries when they were developing?
(figures are given in 1990 dollars)
Per Capita Income Band	Now-Developed Countries (1750)	Now-Developed Countries (1820)	Now-Developed Countries (1875)	Now-Developed Countries (1913)	Developing Countries (1992)
Below 1,000	France (921)	Japan (720)			Ethiopia (300)
		Finland (759)			Bangladesh (720)
		Canada (893)			Burma (748)
		Ireland (954)
1,000-1,500	UK (1,328)	Norway (1,002)	Finland (1,176)	Japan (1,334)	Ghana (1,007)
		Spain (1,063)	Norway (1,469)	Portugal (1,354)	Kenya (1,055)
		Italy (1,092)			Cote d’Ivoire (1,134)
		Germany (1,112)			Nigeria (1,152)
		Sweden (1,198)			India (1,348)
		France (1,218)
		Denmark (1,225)
		USA (1,287)
		Belgium (1,291)
		Austria (1,295)
1,500-2,000		Australia (1,528)	Italy (1,516)	Greece (1,621)	Pakistan (1,642)
		The Netherlands (1,561)	Canada (1,690)		Egypt (1,927)
		UK (1,756)	Sweden (1,835)
			Austria (1,986)
2,000-3,000			Denmark (2,031)	Finland (2,050)	Philippines (2,213)
			France (2,198)	Spain (2,255)	Morocco (2,327)
			Germany (2,198)	Norway (2,275)	Indonesia (2,749)
			USA (2,599)	Italy (2,507)
			Belgium (2,800)	Ireland (2,733)
			The Netherlands (2,829)
3,000-4,000			New Zealand (3,707)	Sweden (3,096)	Peru (3,232)
			UK (3,511)	France (3,452)	China (3,098)
				Austria (3,488)
				Denmark (3,764)
				Germany (3,833)
			The Netherlands (3,950)
4,000-5,000			Australia (4,433)	Belgium (4,130)	Turkey (4,422)
				Switzerland (4,207)	Thailand (4,422)
				Canada (4,231)	Brazil (4,862)
5,000-6,000				UK (5,032)	Mexico (5,098)
				New Zealand (5,178)	Colombia (5,359)
				USA (5,307)
				Australia (5,505)

Source: Maddison 1995. The 1750 figures are extrapolated from 1820 data, with annual growth rate taken as 0.4 per cent for both the UK and France. 0.4 per cent is the weighted average of estimates by economic historians of England (de Vries 1984). It is widely accepted among economic historians that the French growth rate at the time was similar to that of England (Crouzet 1967).

Chapter 4 Lessons for the Present

4.1. Introduction

The discussion so far shows how the policies and institutions used by now-developed countries in the early stages of their development differ significantly from those that have commonly assumed to have been used by them, and even more from the guidelines recommended to, or rather more frequently demanded of, today’s developing countries.

In the next two sections of this chapter, I summarize the principal conclusions of chapters 2 and 3, and discuss whether we can really conclude that the current push for ‘good policies’ and ‘good governance’ by the developed countries amounts in fact to ‘kicking away the ladder’. Section 4.4 then considers some possible objections to my argument, while the final section draws some conclusions, and suggests new directions of research that have emerged from the present study.

4.2 Rethinking Economic Policies for Development

In Chapter 2, I looked at the policies that had been used by the now-developed countries (NDCs) during their development, from fourteenth century England down to the East Asian NICs in the late twentieth century.