HIRSCHMAN, ‘REFORM‐MONGERING’ AND DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9485.1962.tb00375.x |
| Date | 01 February 1962 |
| Author | A. Nove |
| Published date | 01 February 1962 |
HIRSCHMAN.
‘
REFORM-MONGERING
’
AM)
DEVELOPMENT
ECONOMICS
A. NOVE
READERS
of
Hirschman’s
Strrrtegy
of
Economic
Development
will know
the author
as
a man of highly original mind, whose approach to
problems of economic development is characterised above all by a
search for practical ways forward, viable
‘
strategies
’,
with choices
related to the difficult task of inducing half-hearted
or
backsliding
politicians
to
keep moving in the right direction. It is
a
world far
removed from the neater but perhaps less relevant constructions
of
model-builders and optimisers. It is an approach which emphatically
has an important place in the literature.
In
his latest volume,’ Hirsch-
man has moved further
in
the direction of reaching for practical ways
forward, into the
politicd
economy of development. He is aware,
as
too many are not, that desirable actions are often not taken for a
variety of political and social reasons. One has to study the society,
its property relations, its distribution of power. Says Hirschman, with
a
good deal
of
justice;
‘
Compared
to
these reminders of what is
or
is
not credible and feasible when power is distributed
in
a
certain way,
the routine of present-day international experts in blandly proposing
year-in, year-out essentially antagonistic measures of every description
regardless of political realities seems singularly inane
or
naive. In
fact the experts themselves, after having absorbed a critical amount
of frustration, frequently become converts to the view that, in this
or
that country,
‘
everything
’
has to change before any improvement at
all can be introduced.’
Hirschman’s ‘regional
’
speciality is Latin America. He is very
conscious of the instability of many Latin American countries, the
resistance to change
of
various vested interests, the inefficiency of
state organs. It is
all
too
easy, he notes, to declare that revolution, a
violent overthrow of existing institutional and property relationships,
is the only way out. He admits that
it
might well be the only way out
in certain circumstances. But his work is a search for ways forward
within the existing structure,
or
rather
for
non-revolutionary ways
of
modifying the structure by using existing forces and institutions. The
Albert
0.
Hirschman.
Journeys
into
Progress. Studies
of
economic policy-
making
in
Latin
America.
The Twentieth Century
Fund.
New
York,
1963.
308
pp.
$4.00.
25
To continue reading
Request your trial