Do rich industrial nations underestimate the threat to their economic
stability posed by demands for a new international economic order? Are
the developing countries wrong to assume that their economic advancement
depends on a transfer of wealth from the richer nations? Sir W. Arthur
Lewis's provocative analysis of the present economic order and its
origins suggests that the answer to both questions is yes.
Professor Lewis perceptively illuminates aspects of recent economic
history that have often been overlooked by observers of international
affairs. He asks first how the world came to be divided into countries
exporting manufactures and countries exporting primary commodities. High
agricultural productivity and a good investment climate allowed
countries in Northwest Europe to industrialize rapidly, while the
favorable terms of trade they enjoyed assured them and the temperate
lands to which Europeans migrated of continuing dominance over the
tropical countries.
At the core of the author's argument lies the contention that as the
structure of international trade changes, the tropical countries move
rapidly toward becoming net importers of agricultural commodities and
net exporters of manufactures. Even so, they continue to depend on the
markets of the richer countries for their growth, and they continue to
trade on unfavorable terms. Both of these disadvantages, he concludes,
stem from large agricultural sectors with low productivity and will
disappear only as the technology of tropical food production is
revolutionized.
Originally published in 1978.
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