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

Economics 325
amounts to the same thing - analyses made at so high a level of generalization
that they ignore the crucial differences between the two socio-economic systems.
How is economics reacting to the growing demand for a dynamic approach?
Reviewing development trends - with special reference to the theory of growth -
it would appear that, over the past two decades, economics has moved away
from the classical economists, from Marx, Schumpeter and all the others whose
work justified including economics among the basic social sciences. The pre-
dominance of the praxiological approach described above (the investigation of
the functional inter-dependence of various factors involved in the material
processes of production without regard to historically-changing social condi-
tions) is not confined to Western economics. It also exists in the socialist coun-
tries, despite the official Marxist methodology. Since the removal of basic in-
stitutional constraints to growth that exist under capitalism, many economists
in the socialist countries have devoted themselves almost exclusively to problems
which, in Marxian terminology, could be defined as referring to ‘relations be-
tween things’ or to ‘relations between man and things’, while leaving aside the
‘relations between people’ in economic processes.
To remedy this shortcoming in socialist economics, it is necessary to go be-
yond general statements of the differences in growth processes as between capi-
talist and socialist economies, and to make a proper analysis of factors which
are too often taken for granted, e.g. changes in social relations under socialism,
and the r61e and way of operation of the political superstructure. These and
other factors do not, and cannot, remain stable, and the changes which take
place may have a profound influence on the behaviour of people engaged in the
economic process and consequently, on the pace and structure of growth. In this
respect, the theory of growth under socialism as presented in Marxist literature
in socialist countries is still far from adequate. For example, the links between
growth theory and the theory of the functioning of the economy (some econo-
mists speak about the behaviouristic aspect of economics) are recognized to be
unsatisfactory; similarly as between the theory of growth and the general theory
of socio-economic development.
Mention must here be made of ‘growth-fetishism’ (or ‘growthmanship’, as
Colin Clark caIls it). An exaggerated importance is sometimes attached to in-
dices of growth, treated as the decisive criteria of the efficiency of an economic
system or policy, without paying due attention to such questions as the ultimate
impact of growth on living standards and the way of life of the population,
social equity, external diseconomies, and so on, although a simple positive cor-
relation cannot always be expected between economic growth as measured by
an increase in output per capita over time, and favourable social change. A
more cautious view of indices of growth would seem particularly necessary in
the case of the developing countries, but would be by no means superfluous in
the case of the advanced countries either. Little, unfortunately, has so far been
done to disarm the charge that the theory of growth treats growth as an end in
itself, and not merely as a foundation for development and progress seen in a
much broader and inore comprehensive sense.
So far, this paper has been largely confined to what appear to be the existing