Comment on Professor Myint’s Paper: 2

Abstract

In his attempt to get trade theory off the hook, it is interesting that Professor Myint ends up by hinting that the real issue is the need for a theory of inter national aid, rather than a revised theory of international trade. I would go further and suggest that what is needed is a theory of international development that would take account, once and for all, of the actual world in which economic transactions and growth and development efforts take place. The world is faced with the existence of independent states that have at least an equal right to subscribe to or practise certain economic policies. These policies are affected by economic interdependence to different degrees, and some states are under various forms of economic dependence. Historically, such dependence is related to the appearance of political institutions and technological progress in some nations earlier than in others; it further evolved through particular forms of trading and investment, as well as human settlement. At different points of time, wars and political upheavals, social rigidities, changes in demand due to tech­nology or tastes, and other factors, changed the relative positions. Today we are faced with the well-known disparities in income per capita over which the United Nations has been so concerned since 1945. The reduction of such disparities is conditioned heavily by the past patterns of growth and by differences in social and political institutions, the size of domestic markets and ability to absorb new technology.

A familiar chapter-heading ‘Development through Trade’ might well have been called ‘Trade through Development’.