Rostow's stages theory was a classic lineal development view. Of course, some
Marxian approaches also suffered from this as well (wasn't Rostow's called
something like an "anti-Marxian" or "non-Marxian" approach?--explicitly by he
himself, I mean). All societies necessarily pass through these stages (no
"skipping" stages, no alternative paths), "higher" stages are "better" than
"lower" ones, differences in everything from culture to ecological factors are
ignored, the whole "development" analogy is adopted--so the whole
terminology/ideology of "immature," "backward," "progress," "modern," etc.
We might wonder about the presense/absence of economists, but we have to think
about whether, depending on which economists and whose economics, we may be
better off without them or not? It's another reason why I have often had mixed
feelings about requiring some economics for some interdisciplinary programs, in
high schools, as general distribution requirements--a little economics can do a
whole lot of damage.
From: Jim Devine
Subject: Where are the economists?
At 11:10 AM 10/13/00 -0400, you wrote:
>I wonder what a person who thinks Rostow is a good economist is doing
on a
>progressive economists' list (other than engage in periodic
redbaiting)?
I think that WW Rostow had some good points, though his involvement with
the Vietnam war and his "stages theory" ideology sure make the balance
lean
toward the bad side. His economic history of England is informative,
while
his anti-formalist vision of economics (cited several times in Bill
Tabb's
recent book on the history of economic thought) is useful.
It seems to me that he shows what can happen to the average academic if
he
gets into the state hierarchy and wants to have some influence on the
people at the top there.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
