An Historical Materialist Appraisal of Friedrich List and his Modern-Day Followers

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to discuss catch-up development as it has been conceptualised by writers operating within the Listian framework. The rationale for this is that combating global poverty and achieving sustainable economic growth is at the centre of most debates on development in the global south. However, at present anti-poverty strategies are pursued within a broad neoliberal framework, despite the fact that increasing numbers of the world’s population (lay and academic) perceive neoliberalism to be extremely damaging for the world’s poor (cf. Weisbrot et al. 2001). In strong opposition to neoliberal development strategy stands a body of thought that is growing in popularity (at least within the academy and some policy circles) and draws on Friedrich List’s original critique of the British liberal economists Adam Smith and David Ricardo. This article suggests that neo-Listian development economics does offer realistic and achievable catch-up policies to elites in developing countries. However, by drawing on and extending Marx’s original critique of List, this article also argues that while such policies may achieve faster rates of capital accumulation than neoliberal policies, they do not necessarily serve the interests of the larger part of the populations of late developing countries, as their proponents claim. It argues, further, that for such policies to be applied in ways that do benefit the world’s poor, they need to be integrated into what is conceptualised here as social development, and should be conceptualised not as policies to stabilise capitalism in the long term, but as part of a movement towards socialising the economy under democratic control.