Main trends of research in the social and human ... - unesdoc - Unesco

3 I 8 Economics
tatives of various disciplines often prove fruitless; they constitute no more than
a series of monologues unless each of the experts is so familiar with the disci-
plines of his colleagues that he can translate what he has to say into scientific
language that is accessible to them, and unless all the experts present fully realize
the dual nature - both parameter and variable - of the magnitudes that are
discu~sed.~s
3. The theory of socio-economic development
As stated above, the theory of socio-economic development logically precedes the
theory of growth and the theory of the functioning of the economy, since both
the latter must be studied against a specific socio-economic structure whereas,
by definition, the theory of socio-economic development deals with changes in
such structures.
In these circumstances, is there any point in having a theory of socio-economic
development? If there is, history, or at least socio-economic history, must be
recognized as nomothetic, since it permits the construction of models of a certain
number of social systems that have existed during the history of mankind,
under specific conditions, and endowed with particular features. If not, the only
alternative is economic agnosticism, since economics cannot be completely
isolated from its historical context. As this context lacks regularity, an element
of uncertainty will always enter into any economic theory.66
Among the nomothetical approaches to history, the Marxist theory of socioeconomic
formations has an important place. Its purpose was to make a bridge
between history and economics. For two reasons, it was long ignored by non-
Marxist economists : first, market equilibrium questions became the main preoccupation
of economists (replacing studies of growth and development which
had taken up so much of the attention of the classical economist); and secondly,
the Marxist theory of socio-economic formations was too rigidly and formalistically
interpreted by Marxist economists, being presented by them as a unilinear
scheme of formations, inevitably succeeding one another in a strictly determined
order.
There has been a notable revival of interest in the Marxist theory of formations
in recent years, however, because of the renewed interest in problems of
development since the developing countries won independence, and as a result
of the world-wide competition between two social systems : capitalism and
socialism; moreover, discussion among Marxists themselves has led to a more
flexible interpretation of Marxist thought, freeing it from unilinearism and from
a Europe-centred view of universal hist01-y.~’
The ‘discovery’ of the developing countries has had far-reaching methodological
consequences for economics. The quite different reality in these countries
showed up the inadequacy of economic theories that were supposed to be universally
valid but were in fact based on capitalist industrial economies, and this
led to a growing awareness of the differences between the respective problems of
the advanced and of the developing countries.
This is the background to theories of economic and social dualism and pluralism,
but if these are to go beyond a simple recognition of the existence of ‘tra-