How Rich Countries Got Rich… and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor By ERIK S. REINERT Publisher: Anthem Press India and Third World Network ISBN: 978 1 84331 333 5 Year: 2008   No. of pages: 398 (Sale of this edition of the book is restricted to South East Asia.)

ABOUT THE BOOK

An illuminating history of economic development in the Modern world

Erik S. Reinert is a key figure in the growing worldwide movement against neo-classical economic theory. He argues that rich countries have developed through a combination of government intervention, protectionism and strategic investment yet, when it comes to today’s poorer nations, the orthodoxy insists on unqualified and absolute standards of free trade.

Reinert’s strongly revisionist history reveals how economic theory has long been torn between the continental Renaissance tradition and the free market ideas of English and later American economics. Our economics were founded on protectionism and state activism and could only later afford the luxury of free trade, so when our leaders come to lecture poor countries on the right road to riches they do so in almost perfect ignorance of the real history of mass affluence. This book mounts a strong challenge and opens up the debate on why free trade is not the best answer for our hopes of worldwide prosperity.

Contents

Foreword by Jomo K.S., UN Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development

Acknowledgements

List of Figures

Introduction

1.         Discovering Types of Economics Theories

2.         The Evolution of the Two Different Approaches

3.         Emulation: How Rich Countries Got Rich

4.         Globalization: the Argument in Favour are also the Arguments Against

5.         Globalization and Primitivization: How Poor Get Even Poorer

6.         Explaining Away Failure: Red Herrings at the End of History

7.         Palliative Economics: Why the Millennium Goals are a Bad Idea

8.         ‘Get the economic activities right’, or, the Lost Art of Creating Middle-Income Countries

Appendices

I           David Ricardo’s Theory of Comparative Advantage in International Trade

II          Two Different Ways of Understanding the Economic World and the Wealth and poverty of Nations

III        Frank Graham’s Theory of Uneven Development

IV        Two Ideal Types of Protectionism Compared

V         Philipp von Hörnigk’s Nine Points on How to Emulate the Rich Countries (1684)

VI        The Quality Index of Economic Activities

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Price                                       

Malaysia RM54.00

Other countries US$21.00

Prices are inclusive of postage costs by airmail.