Development of Underdevelopment or Underdevelopment of Development in China

Abstract

These comments are not by a China specialist but come from someone who has been concerned with world capitalist development and the development of underdevelopment within it. In the comments that follow, therefore, the evaluation of the content of Lippit's argument about China will largely be left to the China specialists; while here we will concentrate on the construction of the argument about the development of underdevelopment. To begin with, we may question whether the title Mr. Lippit chooses for his essay is even appropriate for the argument he constructs. Mr. Lippit does well in examining the theses that are obscurantist than explanatory (as he terms one of them, though the same term applies equally to the others), and he does more than well to reject them on grounds of their lack of scientific foundation. In their universal versions (and also their applications to other case studies) the Rostowian stage theory beginning with traditional society, the Parsonian (pseudo-Weberian) theory of pattern variables including family structure and culture, the Leibensteinian low- and Schultzian high-level equilibrium trap theory, and the Nurskian-Myrdalian vicious circles have all long since shown to be a-, indeed anti-, historical and therein akeady scientifically unacceptable as vehicles for the explanation of any social process and development (and non- or under