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Author(s): H. W. Arndt
Source: Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. 29, No. 3 (Apr., 1981), pp. 457-466
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1153704
Accessed: 13-09-2016 11:59 UTC
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Economic Development and Cultural Change
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Economic Development: A Semantic History
H. W. Arndt
Australian National University
Mainstream Economics
Adam Smith spoke, not of economic development, but of "the progress
of England towards opulence and improvement."1 "Material progress"
was the expression almost invariably used by mainstream economists
from Adam Smith until World War II when they referred to what we
would now call the economic development of the West during those 2
centuries.2 When Colin Clark in 1940 published his monumental compara-
tive study of economic development, he still called it The Conditions of
Economic Progress (the title Marshall had had in mind for the fourth
volume of his Principles, which he had planned but never wrote).3
Economists and economic historians wrote about the rise of capi-
talism, the industrial revolution, the evolution of trade, or "The Growth
of Free Industry and Enterprise."4 But this historical process appears
1 Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, ed. E. Cannan, 2 vols. (1776; reprint ed.,
London: University Paperbacks, 1961), 1:367.
2 For quotations from J. S. Mill, A. Marshall, K. Wicksell, L. Robbins, A. G. B.
Fisher, and others, see H. W. Arndt, The Rise and Fall of Economic Growth (Melbourne:
Longman Cheshire, 1978), chap. 2.
3 Colin Clark, The Conditions of Economic Progress (London: Macmillan Pub-
lishing Co., 1940); A. C. Pigou, ed., Memorials of Alfred Marshall (London: Macmillan
Publishing Co., 1925), p. vii.
4 A. Marshall, Principles of Economics, 2 vols., 9th ed. (London: Macmillan
Publishing Co., 1961), 1, appendix A:723.
0 1981 by The University of Chicago. 0013-0079/81/2903-0009$01.00
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458 Economic Development and Cultural Change
Marxist Origins
In one sense, the birthplace of "economic development" in Engli
seem to be the first English translation of Marx's Capital and
s Ibid., p. 752.
6 Ibid.
7 J. A. Schumpeter, The Theory of Economic Development, trans. R. Opie, Har-
vard Economic Studies, vol. 46 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1934).
8 L. C. A. Knowles, The Economic Development of the British Overseas Empire
(London: George Routledge & Sons, 1924), p. ix.
9 Vera Anstey, The Economic Development of India (London: Longmans, Green,
1929).
1o R. H. Tawney, Land andLabour in China (London: Allen & Unwin, 1932), p. 18.
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H. W. Arndt 459
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460 Economic Development and Cultural Change
Colonial Development
"Economic development" as used by the British historians of Empire
the 1920s is a concept quite different from the Marxist one, with a
siderably longer history. What Lilian Knowles set out to write about
her history of the economic development of the British Overseas Empir
was "the remarkable economic achievements within the Empire dur
the past centuries ... the hacking down of the forest or the sheep rearin
or the gold mining which made Canada, Australia and South Africa i
world factors... or the struggle with the overwhelming forces of nat
which took shape in the unromantic guise of 'Public Works' in Indi
A few years earlier, Lord Milner had warned, in an official memorandum
that "it is more than ever necessary that the economic resources of
Empire should be developed to the utmost,"18 and in 1929 the Briti
Parliament passed a Colonial Development Act.
Whereas for Marx and Schumpeter, economic development was
historical process that happened without being consciously willed
anyone, economic development for Milner and others concerned w
colonial policy was an activity, especially though not exclusively, o
government. In Marx's sense, it is a society or an economic system t
"develops"; in Milner's sense, it is natural resources that are "develop
Economic development in Marx's sense derives from the intransitive ver
in Milner's sense from the transitive verb.19
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H. W. Arndt 461
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462 Economic Development and Cultural Change
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H. W. Arndt 463
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464 Economic Development and Cultural Change
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H. W. Arndt 465
proposed a "world
idea was taken up
world.43 Another f
was probably the f
postwar sense,44 a
"The International
In the immediate
virtually synonym
veloped countries. A
of rapid economic
income between ric
documents on deve
ultimate aim in eco
the entire populat
appeared in 1955 un
Rostow's hands M
Stages of Economi
established usage wh
development as a ri
A few years earli
trend. Protesting
head" into the defin
the earlier distinc
"backward" peoples
terms different con
resources, and the l
fundamentally beca
42 Eugene Staley, W
Relations, 1939), p. 68
43 See H. W. Arndt,
Planning: Essays in H
(London: Allen & Unw
44 W. Benson, "The
Economic Basis of Pea
45 P. N. Rosenstein-
Backward Areas," Inte
46 W. A. Lewis, "An
156.
47 United Nations, E
grammes and Agencie
48 W. A. Lewis, The
1955); W. W. Rostow,
versity Press, 1960).
49 Gunnar Myrdal,
Gerald Duckworth &
50 Hla Myint, "An In
Papers, n.s. 6 (June 1
51 Ibid., p. 132 (italic
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466 Economic Development and Cultural Change
52 Ibid., p. 134.
53 B. Okun and R. W. Richardson, eds., Studies in Economic Devel
York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1961), p. 230.
54 D. A. Baldwin, Economic Development and American Foreign Po
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966), p. 1.
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