Sur la croissance économique des nations modernes

Abstract

Reflections on modern economic growth of nations. If modern economic growth is defined as the spread of a system of production based upon the increased application of organized systems of tested knowledge it is clear that the sum of tested, or scientific knowledge which has potential economic significance is very wide indeed. The increased speed of economic growth over the last century or so implies an increased rale of addition to the stock of knowledge in existence. If , recently , necessity has become less the mother of invention than in the past and invention tends to become the mother of new needs and impulses this implies that the backlog of unused knowledge in society may have increased. If this is so, all countries tend to become underdeveloped and large unused growth potentials in rich countries may prevent an outflow of capital from more to less economically developed countries. It may follow also that it is no longer correct to say that there are technical limits to growth. But even if there is now no fixed limit to economic growth potential we still need to know how the accumulation of knowledge may be maximized. Finally, skewness in the distribution of the human potential devoted to increasing the stock of knowledge or in applying it raises problems of national adaptations in order to make possible the maximum use of the economic growth potential of the transnational stock of knowledge. The problem of the national exploitation of, or adjustement to the growth potential of knowledge may be approached through an examination of the prerequisites which seem exist for rapid economic growth to rake place. These seem to include an acceleration in population growth, a rise in capital formation proportions, a big redistribution of population and labour accompanying a decline in agriculture and a growth of cities, changes in the character of organizational units and a transformation of values. These changes are the work of active minorities and entail painful transition periods of controlled economic revolution. Once the transition period is over, sustained economic growth may depend increasingly upon social, political and economic institutions and their adaptation to the changing opportunities for economic growth offered by the application of science to production. But economic growth in any one country is not cut off from the international situation of that country. Economic growth acts with unequal impact upon nations. The major innovation, determining a distinct epoch in economic growth , begins in one or a few pioneering nations and then spreads oat to others. In this process account must be taken not only of «peacetype» international movements of men and goods but also of the political or power element in international relations. The latter seems, in fact, to be increasing in importance both inside national frontiers and internationally.