State Versus Market in Developing Countries in the Twenty First Century
by Kalim Siddiqui (University of Huddersfield)(k.u.siddiqui@hud.ac.uk)
Abstract:
This paper analyses the issue of the state versus the market in developing countries. There was wide ranging debate in the 1950s and 1960s about the role of the state in their economy when these countries attained independence, with developing their economies and eradicating poverty and backwardness being seen as their key priority. In the post-World War II period, the all-pervasive ‘laissez-faire’ model of development was rejected, because during the pre-war period such policies had failed to resolve the economic crisis. Therefore, Keynesian interventionist economic policies were adopted in most of these countries.
The economic crisis in developing countries during the 1980s and 1990s provided an opportunity for international financial institutions to impose ‘Structural Adjustment Programmes’ in the name of aid, which has proved to be disastrous. More than two decades of pursuing neoliberal policies has reduced the progressive aspects of the state sector. The on-going crisis in terms of high unemployment, poverty and inequality provides an opportunity to critically reflect on past performance and on the desirability of reviving the role of the state sector in a way that will contribute to human development.
URL: http://econpapers.repec.org/paper/peswpaper/2015_3ano96.htm
This paper was distributed by NEP-HIS on 2015-04-19. In it Kalim Siddiqui indicates that the global economic crisis that began in 2007 “provides an opportunity” to reconsider Keynesian interventionist models, thus “reviving the role of the state sector” for purposes of protecting the interests of the majority. Siddiqui centers his argument on the modern economic development experiences of the developing world, juxtaposing it with the experiences of advanced industrialized nations. He particularly emphasizes the economic development experiences of the United States and the United Kingdom, in efforts to advance the argument that Keynesian interventionist policies and protectionist agendas are instrumental in securing a transition into advance industrialization. He argues that the developing world needs to experience a similar transition to that of the UK and the US in order to achieve similar levels industrial competitiveness. However the neoliberal discourse promoted by the industrial powers and the multilateral system after World War Two, and the implementation of neoclassical liberal policies after the 1980s, impeded the developing world from moving in the right direction.
Siddiqui begins the construction of his argument by providing a brief history of the modern economic development patterns of both the UK and the US. This lays the foundation for his main argument that developing nations should return to the Keynesian patters of economic development in order to achieve advanced levels of industrialization that will eventually allow them to correct present market failures, reducing unemployment, poverty, and environmental degradation.
He points out that in the 1970s and 1980s the UK and US moved away from interventionist policies and adopted a neo-classical model of economic development in response to “corruption, favoritism, and other forms of self-seeking behavior,” that lead to the economic crisis of the times. This model would then be promoted across the international system by the economists of the World Bank and the IMF who found in the same neo-classical model an explanation for the failed Import Substitution Industrialization (ISI) policies implemented across the developing world to cope with the crisis of the 1970s and 1980s.
Kalim Siddiqui
What Siddiqui does not address is that the failure of the implementation of the ISI policies across the developing world were the direct result of the same corruption and self-centered tendencies of leadership that forced a move away from interventionist policies in countries like the UK and the US. I agree with Siddiqui that the structural changes introduced by the multilateral financial agencies did more damage than good, however I disagree with his idea that the developing world should return once again to Keynesian solutions, since the implementation of these structural adjustment programs were in fact forms of interventionism that catapulted most of these economies into debt.
Siddiqui then lays down a series of reasons why the role of the state should be reconsidered across the developing world, highlighting that greater interventionism would be more beneficial than an increasing role of the market system. He uses the recent success stories of state driven capitalist experiments such as China’s, Brazil’s, India’s, and Malaysia’s, disregarding the fact that these state driven models continue to be tainted with problems of corruption and self-rewarding management styles that are inefficient and wasteful. For example, he points out the success of Petrobras in Brazil, not following up on the fact that the state-run oil company is now under investigation for high levels of corruption that has sent its stock price in a critical downward spiral.
At the end Siddiqui’s argument is debunked by more contemporary realities; including decreasing global unemployment patters, economic recovery, and the downfall of state run economies such as those that moved to the Left in Latin America during recent times. Moreover, the bailout policies implemented by the United States and the European Union during the peak of the latest financial crisis contradicts Siddiqui’s argument that neoliberal economies “do not countenance any economic intervention by the state.” I argue that interventionism is an integral part of the advancement of neoliberal agendas; the question that Siddiqqui should be asking is what degree of interventionism is ideal for the developing world under a global neoliberal reality that is inevitable to avoid?
Siddiqui’s work represents yet another criticism to neoliberal capitalism, centering on the agendas set by the administrations of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. It does not provide a convincing method or strategy for reviving state driven capitalism under an increasingly intertwined global economic system. It is rich in criticism but short of offering any real solutions through state interventionism. Current case studies that have returned to interventionist models, as in the case of Brazil or India, have failed once again to resolve issues of poverty and income inequality. I agree with the author’s conclusion that the implementation of neoliberal models across the developing world has distorted inequality and social justice even further but disagree with the simplistic solution of increasing state interventionism in the management of market driven economies for the sake of it. More so when the historic evidence indicates that the leadership across the developing world has consistently pursued self-interests and not the interests of the masses. From my point of view, the revival of interventionist models across the developing world will just complete the vicious cycle of history one more time, particularly now that the interests of private global actors has permeated the internal political economy decision making processes of the developing world. If in the early stages of the modern economic development of the developing world foreign political and business interests directly and indirectly penetrated local decision making, thanks in part to the intervention of the World Bank and the IMF as it was pointed out by Siddiqui, then it is inevitable to impede such filtrations under a global system, unless the nation state is willing to pay the high costs of isolationism.
Siddiqui indicates that self-marginalization from the market system worked for the UK and the US, allowing them to strengthen their internal market and generate the technological and human capital capabilities necessary for advanced industrialization, but that was more than one hundred years ago when the globalization of the market had not reached the levels of sophistication of today. If these industrial powers were to try this same experiment today, the outcome would have been very different. In the past decade developing nations such as Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia, and Ecuador have experimented with Siddiqui’s model and the results have been no different than the old experiments of Import Substitution Industrialization and other interventionist approaches of the post-Second World War Two era. Corruption, political self-interest, lack of internal will to risk investment capital, lack of infrastructure, lack of an internal sophisticated consumer market, the absence of technology and energy resources, and the inability to generate short-term wealth for redistribute purposes in order to guarantee the long-term projection of the interventionist model has resulted in failed revivals of the Keynesian model. It is the reason why Cuba is now willing to redefine its geopolitical strategy and reestablish relations with the United States; clearly the interventionist model is and was not able to sustain a national economy under a market driven international system.
The solution lies inside the market system. It is futile to denigrate neoliberalism unless the developing world leadership is willing to construct a parallel market system, as once envisioned by Hugo Chavez, but we are far from that reality. Instead each nation state should reevaluate its wealth distributive and resource allocation policies, moving away from defense spending and refocusing on infrastructure, technology, human capital, health, and the construction of a solid and self-sustainable middle class. Van Parijs’s pivotal work, Real Freedom for All speaks to this idea, indicating that the solution to securing policies that center on what Siddiqui calls the majority, lies in capitalism and not in socialism. If, through a more equal distribution of capital across all sectors of society, capitalism is able to outperform any socialist or interventionist model, then there is no need to attack capitalism and its neoliberal ideas. A replication of this model across the developing world would boost economies into a more sophisticated level of economic development. More competition among states’ private sectors would lead to a more efficient international system, a dynamic that would be enhanced even further by less and not more government intervention. However, the current realities pointed out by Siddiqui indicate that political and corporate elites are not willing to redefine their views on capitalism and therefore we need greater government intervention for redistribute purposes. The redistribution of the pie is the only way to avoid Marx’s inevitable revolution, I agree with Siddiqui. But I do not trust the role of the state as a redistributive agent. I am more in favor of what Michael Howard calls “basic income capitalism” that secures sustainable expendable income in the hands of all consumers through the market system. The dilemma of interventionism continues to be at the forefront, yet it could easily be resolved by the market itself, as long as the actors, workers and owners of capital, are willing to redefine the outreach and potential of capitalism; as long as the social construction of freedom of capital is redefined?
References
Michael W. Howard, “Exploitation, Labor, and Basic Income.” University of Maine (work in progress).
Kalim Siddiqui, “State Versus Market in Developing Countries in the Twenty First Century,” Institute of Economic Research (working paper), submitted at VIII International Conference on Applied Economics, Poland, June 2015, p.1.
Van Parijs, P. Real Freedom for All: What (If Anything) Could Justify Capitalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
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