Economic Policy for Growth

Economic development is but one facet of human development. This forces us to ask how humans develop. Man is a social animal and the growth of our humanity requires various social institutions, such as bureaucracy. The paradox of capitalism is that it is a system ostensibly based on self-interest yet wholly dependent on non-market values for its success. These non-market values are shaped by two much-neglected factors: religion and ethnicity. Economic development is an applied field; whatever it claims as a conclusion should be an applicable conclusion. This requires attention to all those non-economic factors which translate economic decisions into practice - such as the forces of nationalism versus the pressures of such global powers as US foreign policy and the advice of the IMF/IBRD. Since policy is our goal, theory whose intellectual basis is inaccessible to policy makers or which fails to have application should be minimized. Mathematical models are best avoided and, if they are to be used, the burden of proof must be placed upon their proponents. As insights about the market are limited neither by time nor space, poor countries can learn from rich ones, and vice versa. It is most fruitful to focus on examples of success, such as the East Asian economies. They are the clearest illustration of the fact that rapid economic development is possible even to those who have suffered through imperialism, and possess few natural resources, but have their work and their determination intact.