In the 1950s the difference between underdevelopment and backwardness was defined in literature.
daniela parisi

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Da: Societies for the History of Economics [[log in to unmask]] per conto di H Spencer Banzhaf [[log in to unmask]]
Inviato: mercoledì 9 febbraio 2011 2.50
A: [log in to unmask]
Oggetto: Re: [SHOE] The Idea of Development


I do not know this literature well, but this line of posts rings true to me.  I too was thinking 1950s.

Nevertheless, I have two further thoughts here that give me pause before I would settle on that conclusion.  One possibility is that what really happened in the 1950s was not so much a new analytical distinction ("split" as this thread has put it) as a new euphemism, in which "developed" comes to replace "civilized" and underdeveloped replaces "uncivilized."

The other is that I'm pretty sure you can find American economists talking about "developing" the American west, or developing rural areas, well before the 1950s.  How that relates to the international application of the term is a separate, but perhaps not unrelated, question.



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H. Spencer Banzhaf
Associate Professor
Department of Economics
Andrew Young School of Policy Studies
PO Box 3992
Georgia State University
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>>> <[log in to unmask]> 2/8/2011 6:56 PM >>>
One of the critical indicators to the idea of development (not as growth theory) would seem to be when the notion of 'underdevelopment' comes into the frame.  I would guess that this is the 1950s.

Mary S. Morgan
LSE and University of Amsterdam, Currently: Davis Fellow, Princeton University

<http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/economicHistory/Research/facts/Events.htm>

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From: Societies for the History of Economics on behalf of Medema, Steven
Sent: Tue 08/02/2011 15:54
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SHOE] The Idea of Development


Tony Brewer's comment about the "split" (for lack of a better term) in the conception of "development" is spot on. The old view is nicely illustrated in Lord Robbins' book, The Theory of Economic Development in the History of Economic Thought (1968), based on his Chichele Lectures delivered at All Souls in 1966. The focus is very much what we today would call growth theory, and Robbins' definition of "development" is self-consciously along these lines (see pp. 3-5).

Steve Medema
University of Colorado Denver







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