II
Much of the third world witnessed
significantly accelerated growth rates, compared to their own historical
experience, in the post-war period which ushered in the era of decolonisation.
(I shall not go into the question of relative rates of growth
between the advanced and the third world economies since these aggregate
categories conceal crucial differences). This fact per se however
did not cast doubts on the veracity of the anti-"diffusionist"
position. Since decolonisation had loosened the grip of imperialism
on these economies, an acceleration in their growth rates was only to
be expected and tended rather to substantiate the anti-"diffusionist"
position. To be sure, that position had further argued that these economies,
despite the fact of decolonisation, could not achieve any significant
improvement in the living condition of the mass of the people as long
as they remained within the capitalist orbit. But this claim too appeared
vindicated by the experience of notable third world economies like India,
which despite accelerated growth continued to be burdened with acute
mass poverty, in contrast for instance to China where measures such
as radical land redistribution and universal public distribution of
certain necessities had ensured a degree of economic security for all.
It is the emergence of the so-called "East Asian miracle"
that appeared to undermine the anti-"diffusionist" position.
Several aspects of this "miracle"
are clearer to us now than they had been at the time. Unlike the initial
impression that was sought to be conveyed, namely that their success
was a vindication of free market, free trade (laissez faire)
policies which had enabled them to achieve spectacular rates of export
growth through the sheer competitiveness enforced on them by their exposure
to the world market, we now know that their economic regimes were highly
protectionist and dirigiste, in fact far more so in many ways
than in India despite her plethora of controls and regulations. But
even though their growth experience did not establish that the spontaneous
operation of capitalism was not inequalising, it did cast doubt on the
anti-"diffusionist" position for at least two reasons. The
first was the sheer magnitude of growth. The world had seen the Soviet
"miracle", but that was traced to an alternative social system.
It had seen the post-war Japanese "miracle" but that was treated
as an exception, produced under very special circumstances by a sui
generis capitalism, in the only major Asian country to have escaped
colonialism. East Asia not only produced a "miracle" but did
so in countries that had been ravaged by colonialism; its growth rates
were far in excess of anything witnessed in any other part of the decolonised
world. The second reason lay in the fact that this "miracle"
occurred not in the teeth of opposition from imperialism, but under
its benign patronage, in countries which were often referred to as "client
States" of imperialism. The East Asian experience might not have
disproved the tendency towards spontaneous inequalising that occurs
internationally under capitalism, but it did strongly suggest that imperialism
was capable of consciously accommodating (e.g. through providing market
access) growth rates in parts of the third world which were so high
as to enable these parts to break out of their third world status altogether.
In other words it was capable of consciously engendering "diffusion"
of development, unlike what Marxist and other radical development economists
had been saying.
The anti-"diffusionist"
position lost further credibility when the so-called "miracle"
spread to South-East Asia. Economies like Indonesia and Malaysia were
large and populous economies, unlike most of the participants in the
first round of the "miracle". Being rich in raw materials
they had had long and painful histories of colonial exploitation. Their
high growth experience did not even have protectionist neo-mercantilist
regimes as a pre-requisite. They could not even be "explained away"
in terms of being "frontline States" against Communism in
imperialist strategy, for by the time their "miracles" occurred
the "Communist threat" had receded considerably. And they
appeared to contradict the notion that East Asia-type development can
be "tolerated" only in some small parts of the third world
but cannot be replicated over a wider region.
There can scarcely be any
doubt that subscription to a "diffusionist" standpoint is
quite pervasive today. In fact the ease with which the globalisation
agenda has been pushed through owes much to the pervasiveness of this
belief in "diffusionism", which even the Asian crisis has
not succeeded in denting. The question is whether this belief is correct,
i.e. whether the unfettered integration of a third world country into
world capitalism today would bring it accelerated growth capable of
lifting it from the morass of underdevelopment, or economic retrogression
that rolls back the gains of decolonisation. In the rest of this lecture
I would like to argue that even if successful "diffusion"
of development into the third world was possible prior to the 1990s,
i.e. even though the Marxists and other radicals had exaggerated their
case earlier, it is no longer possible today because of certain changes
that have occurred in the nature of world capitalism in the mean time.
The fact that radical analysis had been somewhat off the mark earlier
does not mean that it is off the mark now. But the reason why it is
not off the mark now is not simply because the veracity of the earlier
analysis is belatedly asserting itself; it is because the world has
changed in a manner not anticipated earlier, which paradoxically validates
the earlier conclusions. In the light of this change, to deny those
conclusions now simply because they had been somewhat off the mark earlier
would be altogether unwarranted.
