CHAPTER 5 - Some Principles of Development

Abstract

This chapter presents some principles of economic development. Industrialization enables the use of mechanical power to be applied to productive processes, which provides for a steady increase in the volume of goods produced per man-hour. But also there must be an increase in output in agriculture or else with the withdrawal of labor from the land into the factories, there will be less food to go round. This importance of greater agricultural output alongside industrialization may not always have been fully appreciated. At all stages of development, a large amount of investment in the creation of capital equipment, heavy industry, power supplies, etc., is required, together with an investment in the shape of educational provision to enable technicians and scientists and administrators to be trained. The pace of development is slowest in the early stages. The first steps, getting off the ground, are the hardest and take the longest. Once the process is under way, the steadily accumulating stock of capital equipment and of trained personnel is its own assurance of continued expansion.