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An Inquiry Into The Nature And Causes Of The Wealth Of Nations

3085 Words13 Pages

THEORIES OF DEVELOPMENT
Francis Joe Mathew
Development Studies
TISS, Hyderabad
1. Classical economics, which claims universality and progress for everyone, is a class biased from the start. Reflect on this statement.

In the year 1776, Adam Smith, a Scottish philosopher came up with a book called ‘An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations’. This is where the modern economic school of thought called classical economics pioneered. The idea of classical economics was widely discussed and debated by several economists for a couple of decades and many have written extensively on it. Economists like David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, Friedrich List so on and so forth are among the others who have contributed to the idea of classical …show more content…

Classical economics started as a way to bring down inequality between the noble landlords and the small merchants and traders but they left out the wage earning working class in this process. A group of economists and philosophers argued that the benefits derived from a mode of production are not equal for all classes. Even though the labourers are paid wages for the work they do, they are exploited. The capitalist class have been accumulating capital and free markets have enabled them to prosper whereas the labour class have not got the opportunity in the same way to improve their lives. The effects of classical economic approach have led to income inequality and a low level equilibrium trap. We could state that the classical economics brought about income inequality and concentration of wealth in the hands of a few and the effects of it are being felt now in the economy. The effects of it are still visible in our economy. A report by Oxfam International was presented at the World Economic Forum and it stated that 48% of the global wealth was in the hands of 1% of the people. The other 99% of the people owned the remaining 52% of the global …show more content…

What lessons can we learn from the state-led development experience of South Korea and how they are relevant to India?
Almost seventy years ago, the per capita GDP of South Korea was lesser than Bolivia and Mozambique but today it has a per capita GDP of around 33,200 dollars which is more than that of Spain and New Zealand, according to an article by ‘Foreign Affairs’. Their growth story was incredible and is being discussed and studied widely by economists around the world. This paper looks to understand South Korea’s unprecedented path to achieving high growth rate and if these measures taken by them can be adopted to the Indian

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