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Theory of Economic Growth 1° Edition W. Arthur
Lewis Digital Instant Download
Author(s): W. Arthur Lewis
ISBN(s): 9780415407083, 0415407087
Edition: 1°
File Details: PDF, 38.80 MB
Year: 2007
Language: english
 TPS (216mmx138mm)
ISBN:9780415407083
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 ROlttledge Library Editions

THE THEORY OF
ECONOMIC GROWTH

ECON OMICS
 Routledge Library Editions - Economics

DEVElOPMENT ECONOMICS
In 7 Volumes

Western Enterprise in Far Eastern Economic Develop ment

A/lm
II \X'estern Enterprise in Indonesia and Malaya
A/lm
III Econom ic Analysis and Policy in Underdeveloped Countries
Baller
IV The Condicions of Agricultural Growth BQserllp
V Development Planning Lewis
VI Overhead Costs Lewis
VII The Theory of Economic Growth Lewis
THE THEORY OF ECONOMIC
GROWTH

W ARTHUR LEWIS

i~ ~~~~r~~~~~p
LONDON AND NEW YORK
 First published in 1955

Reprimed in 2003 by
Routledge

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 THE THEORY OF
ECONOMIC GROWTH

by W. Arthur Lewis
Stanley Jevans Pro fessor of Political Economy
in the University of Manchester

George Allen & Unwin LId

RUSKIN HOUSE MUSEUM STREET LONDON
 FIRST PUBLISHED 1955
SECOND u.tPRESSiDN 1956
THIRD IMPRESSION 1957
FOURTH IMPRESSION 1960

This book is copyright uflder Ihe Beme COflvefll;o/l ,

Apart Irom OflY lair dealiflgs lor Ihe purpose 01
pr/f'ate study. reUQrch, crilil'i1m or review, /U
permitted under the Copyright Act 1956, no /XIrliofl
m4Y be reproduced by any process wiThouT writ/en
permission. Enquiry should be made TO the publisher
 PREFACE
The purpose of this book is not to present original ideas on its
subject, but to try to provide au appropriate framework for studying
economic development. The place for original ideas is articles in the
technical journals, and my articles on this subject are listed in the
bibliographical notes. A book of this kind seemed to be necessary
because the theory of economic growth once more engages world-
wide interest, and because no comprehensive treatise on the subject
has been published for about a century, The last great book covering
this wide range was John Stuart Mill's Principles of Political Economy,
published in 1848. After this economists grew wiser; they were too
sensible to try to cover such an enormous field in a single volume,
and they even abandoned parts of the subject altogether, as being
beyond their competence. It is partly irrepressible curiosity and
partly the practical needs of contemporary policy·makers that have
driven me to range over this enormous area; but I suppose it is also
mainly an excess of courage that has permitted me to offer to a critical
public a book whose subject matter is so vast that most of it must
inevitably be treated superficially.
My title is misleading ifit suggests that there can be a single theory
of economic growth. The factors which determine growth are very
numerous, and each has its own set of theories. There is not much in
common between the theories which one uses in studying land tenure,
or the diffusion of new ideas, or the trade cycle, the growth of po pula·
tion, or the government's budgets. 'Theories' of economic growth
might have been a more appropriate title, but it would have been
just as misleading in suggesting that the book set out to review the
literature of economic growth. What I have done is to make not a
theory, but a map. So many factors are relevant in studying economic
growth that it is easy to be lost unless one has a general perspective
of the subject. This also is my excuse for superficiality. Maps are
published in many different scales. for many different purposes. The
articles in the technical journal correspond to a scale of an inch to
the mile. This book is on a scale more like an inch to a hundred
miles; this too should have its uses.
The same combination of curiosity and of practical need which
drove me to this subject has also determined the shape of the book.
Curiosity den:ands a philosophical enquiry into the processes of
human history, w~i l e practical need demands a handbook of things
to do. Since I am equally interested in both. what I have written will
suit neither those who care only for philosophy, nor those who want
to know precisely what to do next. It seems inevitable that a book
6 PREFACE

should rcfie<.:t the personality of its author, with its diversity of

traits.
A book must also relIeet its author's craft. Economists a nd socio-
logists deal in generalizations, where anthropologists and historians
deal in particular cases. I would much have liked to strengthen the
book by including in it two or three case studies of economic growth
or economic stagnation. I set out with this intention, and have bad
much pleasure reading of Ancient Egypt and Greece and Rome and
Islam, not to speak of China, and Japan and the end of the Middle
Ages. But in truth I derived more pleasure than knowledge,
especially of periods before 1500 A.D., partly because so little is
known with certainty about early economic history. To write up a
single case adequately, covering all the matters dealt with in this
book, requires immense researches, and a separate treatise. I have
collaborated very closely with Mrs. Gisela Eisner, who is writing up
the economic development of Jamaica from 1830 to 1930, as a
member of the research staff of the University of Manchester. In a
sense that volume, when it is publisbed in 1956, will be a case study
corresponding to this.
I have had generous treatment from many friend s and acquaint-
anCes. Those who have taken time off, in South East Asia, or Africa.
or the Caribbean, to show me what they were doing, to exchange
ideas, and to entertain me hospitably, are so numerous that I cannot
even begin to recite their names. Then there is also the debt one owes
to the academic fraternity for innumerable conversations in many
countries, as well as the ceaseless Bow of articles in journals. Mr.
Peter Bauer, Professor Max Gluckman, Mr. J. M. Low, Dr. J. Mars.
Dr. K. Martin, the Rev. R. H. Preston, Dr. P. Rosenstein-Rodan
and Professor M. N. Srinivas have been kind enough to read the book
in typescript, and to offer detailed criticisms. I have benefited im-
mensely from their comments, whilst obstinately adhering, here a nd
there, to formulations whkh they still consider false or misleading.
An immense labour has fallen upon my secretary, Miss Dora Walkden,
who has typed the manuscript with patience and with care, and whose
forbearance I gratefully acknowledge.
My wife a nd children have paid a heavy price for the writing of
this book, in absences and silences; but I cannot begin to speak of
what [ owe to their affection.
W.A.L.
Manchester
July, 1954
 CONTENTS
PREFACB page 5
I. INTRODUCTION 9
1. PEFINITIONS
2. METHODOLOGY
3 . LAYOUT
Bibliographical Note
II. THE WILL TO ECONOMIZE 23
I. THE DESIRE FOR GOODS
(a) Asceticism
(b) Wealth and Social Status
(e) Limited Horizons
2. THE COST OF EffORT
(a) The Attitude to Work
(b) The Spirit of Adventure
3. RESOURCES AND RESPONSE
Bibliographical Note
III. ECONOMIC I NSTITUTIONS 57
I. THE RIGHT TO REWARD
(a) Non-Material Rewards
(b) The Management of Property
(e) The Reward for Work
2. TRADE AND SPEC IALIZATION
(a) Advantages
(b) The Extent of the Market
(e) Organization
3. ECONOMIC FREEDOM
(a) Individuali sm and Collective Action
(b) Vertical Mobility
(e) Freedom of Markets
4. SOME CASES
(a) Religion
(b) Slavery
(e) The Family
(d) The Organization of Agriculture
(e) Cottage Industry
5. INSTIT UTIONAL CHANGE
(a) The Process or Change
(b) The Cycle or Change
Bibliographical Note
IV. KNOWLEDGE 164
I. THE GROWTH OF KNOWLEDGE
(a) Pre-scientific Societies
(b) Invention and Research
8 CONTENTS

2. THE APPLICATION OF NEW IDEAS

(a) The Attitude towards Innovation
(b) Knowledge and Profit
3. TRAINING PROGRAMMES
(a) Priorities
(b) Agricultural Extension
(e) Ind ustrial Aptitudes
(d) Business Administration
Bibliographical Note
V. CAPITAL 201
I. CAPITAL REQUIREMENTS
2. SAVINGS
(a) The Need for Savings
(b) Domestic Sources
(e) External Finance
3. INVESTMENT
(a) The Institutional Framework
(b) Point of Departure
(e) Stability
(d) Secular Stagnation
Bibliographical Note
VI. POPULATION AND RESOURCES 304
1. POPULATION AND OUTPUT
(a) Population Growth
(b) Size and Output
(e) Occupations
2. INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
(a) International Trade
(b) Migration
(e) Imperialism
Bibliographical Note
VII. GOVERNMENT 376
1. THE FRAMEWORK OF ENTERPRISE
(a) The Functions of Government
(b) Production Programmes
2. THE PUBLIC SECTOR
(a) Public Expenditure Programmes
(b) The Fiscal Problem
3. POWER AND POLITICS
(a) Roads to Stagnation
(b) Background to Statesmanship
Bibliographical Note
APPENDIX IS ECONOMIC GROWTH
DESIRABLE? 420
(a) The Benefits of Economic Growth
(b) The Acquisitive Society
(c) Problems of Transition
INDEX 436
 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1. DEFINITIONS
THS subject matter of this book is the growth of output per head of
population. What follows does not depend upon precise definitions
of these terms; nevertheless some comment on their meaning may be
helpful.
First it should be noted that our subject matter is growth, and not
distribution. It is possible that output may be growing, and yet that
the mass of the people may be becoming poorer. We shall have to
consider the relationship between the growth and the distribution of
output, but OUf primary interest is in analysing not distribution but
growth.
Secondly, our concern is not primarily with consumption but with
output. Output may be growing while consumption is declining,
either because saving is increasing, or because the government is
using up more output for its own purposes. We shall certainly bave
to consider the relationships between output, consumption, saving
and government activity, but we shall be doing this from the angle of
the growth of output, and not from the angle of the growth of
consumption.
The definition of output we leave to the theorists of national
income. There are difficult index number problems in comparing one
y~ar's output with another. There is the difficult problem of deciding
what is to be treated as output, and what is to be treated as the cost
of output; is increasing expenditure on retail distribution, or adver-
tising, or transportation to be taken as an increase in output, or
merely as a cost of increasing specialization? If work which was
formerly done by the consumer for himself (e.g. making clothes) is
now transferred to factories, is this an increase of output? We
mention these problems so that pedantic reviewers shall not be able
to say that we are not aware of them. We do not. however, have to
solve them. For our concern is not with the measurement of output,
but with its growth. For the purposes of this book any consistent
definition of the output of goods and services will do.
The definition must, however. relate to goods and services-
'economic' output, in the old fashioned meaning of'economic'-and
not to some such concept as welfare, satisfaction or happiness. It
is possible that a person may become less happy in the process
10 THB THBOR Y OF ECONOMIC GROWTH

of acquiring greater command over goods and services. This

frequently happens to individuals, and it may also happen to groups.
This book is not, however, an essay on whether people ought to have
or to want more goods and services; its concern is merely with the
processes by which morc goods and services become available.
The author believes that it is good to have more goods and services.
but the analysis of the book does not in any way depend upon this
belief. In order to emphasize the fact that the book is about the
growth and not about the desirability of output, he has relegated
what he has to say about desirability to an Appendix at the end of
the book.
We have next to distinguish between output and output per head
of population. The relation between population and total output is
an obvious part of our subject matter. Output per head will not
however be our sole concern, for we are also interested in output per
hour of work done, which may differ from output per head if people
work longer or shorter hours, o r if a greater or smaller part of the
population is at work. All these matters will come under review.
The unit of enquiry is the group. Most commonly this will be the
nation-group, in the peculiar statistical sense of the group about
whose activities separate statistics of foreign trade are published;
or the group in respect of whom separate censuses are taken. This is
a definition of convenience, which comes near enough to defining
the group as the people under one government, without entering into
the difficulty of distinguishing between colonial governments,
federal governments, and other variations of 'one' government. Much
of the analysis will, however, apply equally to other groups, for
example, sometimes to minority groups, and sometimes to regional
groupings.
Finally, it should be noted that we shall have frequently to resort
to abbreviation. 'Growth of output per head of the population' is
rather a long phrase to repeat over and over again in a book. Most
often we shall refer only to 'growth' or to 'output', or even occasion-
ally. for the sake of variety, to 'progress' or to 'development'. What-
ever the short term used, 'per head of the population' should be
understood, unless total output is clearly specified or clearly intended
by the context.

2. METHODOLOGY
The growth of output per head depends on the one hand on the
natural resources available, and on the other hand on human
behaviour. This book is primarily interested in human behaviour.
and concerns itself with natural resources only in so far as they affect
 INTRODUCTION 11
human behaviour. Thus it is obvious that poverty of natural re-
sources sets sharp limits to the growth of output per head, and that a
considerable part of differences in wealth between different countries
has to be explained in terms of richness of resources. But it is also
clear that there are great differences in development between
countries which seem .to have roughly equal resources, so it is
necessary to enquire into the differences in human behaviour which
influence economic growth.
The enquiry into human actions has to be conducted at different
levels. because there are proximate causes of growth, as well as causes
of these causes. The proximate causes are principally three. First
there is the effort to economize, either by reducing the cost of any
given product, or by increasing the yield from any given input
of effort or of other resources. This effort to economize shows
itselfio various ways; in experimentation, or risk-taking; in mobility,
occupational or geographical; and in specialization, to mention
only its chief manifestations. If the effort is not made, either
because tbe desire to economize does not exist, or else because
either custom or institutions discourage its expression, then economic
growth will not occur. Secondly, there is the increase of knowledge
and its application. This process has occurred throughout human
history, but the more rapid growth of output in recent centuries is
associated obviously with the more rapid accumulation and applica-
tion of knowledge in production. And thirdly, growth depends upon
increasing the amount of capital or other resources per head. These
three prox..imate causes, though clearly distinguishable conceptually,
are usually found together.
The second stage of the analysis takes us behind these prox..imate
causes to ask wby it is that they are found strongly operating in some
societies but not in others, or at some stages of history but less so in
others. What environments are most favourable to the emergence
of these forces which promote growth? This stage of the enquiry
subdivides itself. First we must enquire which kinds of institutions
are favourable to growth. and which are inimical to effort, to
innovation or to investment. Then we must move into the realm of
beliefs and ask what causes a nation to create institutions which are
favourable, rather than those which are inimical to growth? Is a part
of the answer to be found in tbe different valuations which different
societies place upon goods and services relatively to their valuation
of such non-material satisfactions as leisure, security, equality. good
fellowship or religious salvation? It is necessary to establish how far
the spiritual and the material values conflict, if they do, and how far
the institutions reflect particular ideas of the right way to live. Still
furtber behind this tie questions relating to nature and environment.
12 THE THEORY OF ECONOMIC GROWTH

What causes a people to have one set of beliefs. rather than another
set of beliefs. more or less favourable to growth? Are the differences
of beliefs and institutions due to differences of race, or of geography;
or is it just historical accident?
These questions are all questions of consistency: they ask what
institutions or beliefs or environments are consistent with economic
growth. But there are also questions of evolution. How do beliefs and
institutions change? Why do they change in ways favourable to or
hostile to growth? How does growth itself react upon them? Is
growtb cumulative, in the sense that once it has begua, beliefs and
institutions are inevitably fashioned in such a way as to facilitate
further growth; or is it self-arresting, in the dialectical sense that new
beliefs and institutions are inevitably created to resist growth, and
to slow it down? Are there self-reversing swings over the centuries
in human attitudes and institutions, which make the process of
growth inevitably cyclical?
The field of analysis which we have thus set out is customarily said
to be divided out between different branches of the social sciences,
but if the division has ever been made it has never been effective.
Thus, one might have expected economists to study the proximate
causes, but they have done so only very selectively. Economists have
studied specialization and capital. They have also stressed the im-
portance of mobility, of invention and of risk-taking, and analysed
with care and elegance the logical implications of the will to econo-
mize. Some economists have gone on to study institutions; nine-
teenth-century economists especially refer frequently to land tenure,
or to primogeniture, or to joint stock company legislation. H owever,
such interests ceased to be fashionable in the second quarter of the
twentieth century, and were even authoritatively stated not to be the
proper business of economists. All the rest of the field belongs to
sociologists, to historians, to students of beliefs, to lawyers, to biolo-
gists or to geographers, but they have done little more than to look
at it, and to put in a spade here and there. One suspects that the
sociologists have left the study of economic institutions to the econo-
mists, while the economists have left the subject to the sociologists.
Where the general attitude is to leave the field to someone else,
perhaps there will be no jealousy at the boldness of this writer in
attempting a general survey. Perhaps too the field will no longer seem
so discouraging if there is provided at least a crude map of its
resources and its potentialities.
The questions of consistency are much easier to tackle than the
questions of evolution. This is because,like the theories of economics
or of mathematics. questions of consistency lend themselves to the
process of deduction from simple premises. For. in the light of one or
 INTRODUCTION 13
two simple generalizations, it is not difficult to see why some beliefs
or institutions promote growth more than others. Relevant generali·
zations are such as that men are more likely to invest jf they value
extra goods highly than if they do not; or if they will reap the fruit
of the investment for themselves than if it becomes common prop.-
erty; or if there is freedom to buy or hire co--operating resources than
if there is not. Economists are applying the deductive method all the
time to those of their problems which are quantifiable, at least con·
ceptually, and which can therefore be handled mathematically. The
consistency of beliefs and of institutions with growth is not a problem
in mathematics, and this is why we have in recent years fought shy of
tackling such matters. But the deductive method is nevertheless
applicable and fruitful.
Some of the most elegant work of economic theorists in recent
years has been concern~d with the stability of economic growth.
Starting by assuming capitalist institutions and habits, economists
have built mathematical models which oscillate, or rise logistically
towards a limit, or ultimately swing round from growth to secular
decline. These results are achieved by assuming various coefficients,
and various relations between parameters-for such matters as the
propensity to save, or the birth rate, or the determinants of invest·
ment decisions. This work in turn has stimulated statistical enquiry
to discover what relationships and coefficients best fit recent experi·
ence in the United States and other advanced economies. This work
is essentially in the area of consistency rather than of evolution. It
seeks to discover what the relationships and propensities are, and
how far they are consistent with stable growth; it does not tell us
why the coefficients are what they are, or why they change over time.
The result is an indispensable tool for short-term analysis, to be used
when we are enquiring into the history of some particular group
during some short period of time, during which the basic institutions
and attitudes can be assumed to change very little. But if we are con·
cerned with long-term studies of changes in propensities, or if we
wish to account for differences between groups or countries, we have
usually to look beyond the boundaries of contemporary economic
theory.
In applying the deductive method to the consistency of institutions
with growth, the danger we have to avoid is that of bias. There is a
natural tendency to assume that things which are associated in the
society we know must necessarily also be associated in all other
societies. An important example of this is in the association between
individualism and growth. In Western capitalistic societies men
recognize fewer social obligations than they do in most other
societies, and we naturally tend to assume that a man is more likely
14 TUE THEORY OF BCONOMIC GROWTH

to make economizing efforts jf the fruit accrues to himself alone than

he would if the fruit had also to be shared by more distant members
of his family, or by a whole clan, or by religious or political leaders,
or by others whose claims he would not automatically recognize in
an individualistic society. This assumption may be false. Institutions
which would hinder progress in Western Europe may be conducive
to progress in a society whose tests of whether effort is worth while
are quite different because of their different conception of what is
worth having. There is no way of guarding against this bias except
observation. From the studies made by anthropologists and by
sociologists we have to try to decide what is universal, in the sense of
what is common to human behaviour in different social contexts, and
so to arrive at basic generalizations which stand up to comparisons
between societies, and which can therefore in turn be used for assess·
ing institutions.
It should of course be added that some institutions or beliefs may
be consistent with growth but not with each other. For example.
economic growth is consistent with the state investing twenty per
cent of the national income in public capital formation. or with
private enterprise investing twenty per cent of the national income in
private capital formation. But it is doubtful whether it would be
possible to have one and the same society in which the state invest~d
twenty per cent and private enterprise invested another twenty per
cent in capital formation. The consistency of institutions with each
other is a problem of special interest in the analysis of social change.
and it is mainly in this context that we shal1 have to keep it in mind.
The most difficult problem in consistency is to explain why people
hold the beliefs they do. Economic growth depends on attitudes to
work, to wealth, to thrift, to having children, to invention, to
strangers, to adventure, and so on, and all these attitudes flow from
deep springs in the human mind. There have been attempts to explain
why these attitudes vary from one community to another. One can
look to differences in religion, but this is merely to restate the
problem, since it raises the question why the particular religion holds
these particular tenets, and why it has been accepted in this particular
place and not elsewhere. Or one can look to differences in natural
environment, in climate, in race, or, failing all else, in the accidents
of history. The experienced sociologist knows that these questions
are unanswerable, certainly in our present state of knowledge, and
probably for ali time. He will not expect any more in this book than
that they should be briefly explored. We can say a fair amount about
consistency between institutions and economic growth, and a fair
amount about the relationship between attitudes and institutions;
but when we come to explore the attitudes themselves, how they
 INTRODUCTION IS
emerge, and why they change, we reach sooner or later to the limits
of our understanding of human history.
Questions of social evolution are even more difficult to handle than
questions of consistency because the deductive method helps much
less towards answering them. To understand how or why something
happens, we must look at the facts; that is to say, we must apply the
inductive method to historical data.
Every economist goes through a phase where he is dissatisfied with
the deductive basis of economic theory, and feels sure that a much
better insight into economic processes could be obtained by study-
ing the facts of history. The instinct is sound; yet the enthusiasms of
this phase seldom survive any serious attempt to get to grips with the
facts of history. This is because there are very few facts of history in
the relevant senses. We mean by this, in the first instance, that it is
only fqr very few countries and for very recent periods that any
adequate quantity of historical records exists; and even when there
are plenty of records we cannot always be certain exactly what
happened. We mean also, more significantly, that the 'facts' which
would interest the theorist are not what happened but why it
happened; and while history may record what happened, it is seldom
able to record why it happened. The records may show what some
people who lived at the time thought to be the cause. But, for most of
the events that interest economists (and especially for gradual changes
in institutions or beliefs), very few contemporaries even knew that
they were happening, and most of the recordeJ opinions as to why
they were happening have to be treated with reserve.
History therefore consists not of facts but of bistorians' opinions
of what happened, and of why it happened. Historians' opinions of
what happened are usually pretty reliable-with, of course, striking
exceptions-since historians are trained in sifting historical evidence.
But their opinions of why it happened are usually not more tban a
reflection of their personal theories of social causation, which deter-
mine which facts they select as important. Most economic historians
explain economic events in terms of the economic theories current at
the time of writing (or worse still. current in their undergraduate
days when they were learning their economic theory), and a new crop
of economic theories is liable to be followed by a new crop of his-
torical articles rewriting history in terms of the new theory. A good
historian's opinion of what happened, and of whether the facts he
finds are consistent with this hypothesis or with that is always worth
having, and is indispensable. Yet it is obvious that when the social
theorist appeals to facts, in the sense of appealing to history, he
is appealing to facts in quite a different sense from that in which the
chemist or the biologist appeals to facts.
16 THE THEORY OF ECONOM I C GROWTH

But our difficulties do not end here. For even if what happened
were clear beyond all doubt, it would still be difficult to construct
social theories from these facts. Each historical event has a number
of contributing causes, The event may repeat itself several times, but
the constellation of causes is usually different, since history cannot
repeat itself exactly-if only because each successive event has more
history behind it. The problem is therefore to decide which causes
are more important than others. If the events with which we are
dealing are measurable we can sometimes do this by means of
statistical techniques, which result in equations where each cause is
assigned a specific weight (coefficient). If we are dealing with non-
measurable events, however, we are back in the realm of personal
judgment. Tbis is made still more difficult by the limitations of the
human mind. No one person can know enough history-of different
periods and different countries-to know enough facts---even if the
facts were perfectly knowable-to feel confident that his theory is
based upon a comparison of a sufficient number of events to justify
generalization, that he has got all the facts right each time, and that
his generalization could not be disproved by adducing other similar
events which he has not considered.
It follows that theories of social evolution can never be placed upon
as secure a foundation as can the theories of chemistry or biology,
whose appeal is to repeatable experiments. The difference may be
one of degree only, in the sense that the more speculative theories in
the natural sciences are often upset by the discovery of new facts.
But the facts of history are so much less secu rely established than
are the facts of repeatable experiments that this is one of those
differences of degree which is virtually a difference in kind.
It does not follow that we should cease to try to understand social
change; man being a curious animal, it is beyond our nature to cease
to try to understand. What follows is that we should be modest in our
claims, and recognize how tentative is any hypothesis which we
claim to base upon the study of history.
The formulation oftheories of evolution proceeds a t two levels. At
the lower level we try to discover how things cbange and why; at
the upper level we predict what is going to happen. The former is the
essential business of social theorists, but it is of course the latter which
offers the greatest excitements and follies.
At the lower level the social theorist attempts to discover wbich are
the important variables, what are their relative weights, and how they
are interconnected simultaneously and in time. At the upper level he
has to predict how all the variables will change, and it is tbis which
makes prediction impossible.
Most predictions are no more than exercises in method. We say:
 INTRODUCTION 17
tbe result depends on the bebaviour of variables a to Z; if we assume
tbat a to g stay constant, and that h to r cbange in certain specified
ways, then we can predict that the result will be such and such. To
be able to predict what will happen we have to ·be able to know
how all the variables are going to behave; we must know whether
there is going to be a war within the specified time, or an earthquake,
or an outbreak of influenza, or the birth or death of some influential
person at a critical time, or a thousand other matters which influence
the course of events. Many of these things can never be foreknown;
even if they could be foreknown no single brain could ever set up a
system of equations which could embrace all the millions of variables
which determine the future. We cannot therefore hope to achieve
more than partial predictions of the 'if . . . then .. .' variety.
Examples of these are the difference equations which we use in
exercising some problems of economic dynamics: or the Ricardian
theory of economic growth through population and diminishing
returns towards stagnation; or the Schumpeterian prognosis of
institutional developments in Western capitalism. These exercises
in method are often presented as something more than this, because
the authors either do not realize themselves or fail to make clear to
others the assumptions upon which the exercise is based. They usually
also fail to predict the future correctly, because the coefficients were
wrong or have changed, or because the relations between the vari-
ables were wrong or have cbanged, or because new variables which
had been neglected turn out to be important. The failure of these
exercises is no cause for shame, since it is only by finding out why
hypotheses are inadequate that we can hope to glean a less imperfect
understanding of the how and why of social change.
In this book we write with fair confidence on how society changes,
but with little or no confidence on the directions in which it is likely
to change. There are a few well established generalizations on the
process of change-on such matters as who are the most likely
innovators, on the role of imitation, on the sources of resistance to
change, on the logistic process of growth, and so on. These generali-
zations seem also to have universal application, in the sense that the
process of social change is much the same today as it was 2,000 years
ago, and is much the same in societies of varying stages of develop-
ment. Hence in writing about such matters we can take aU human
history for our province, without seeking to find different laws for
different stages of social organizati on. Here we are in much the same
position as when we discuss problems of consistency; human atti-
tudes to property or to reward, or to child bearing do differ, but
different societies have enough in common for it to be possible to
deduce some general rules of human behaviour. We can tell how
B
18 THE THEORY OF ECONOMIC GROWTH

change will occur if it occurs; what we cannot foresee is what change

is going to occur.
This introductory statement on methodology may help to explain
why this book does not pursue lines of enquiry which may be found
in other analyses of economic evolution. We do Dot believe that it is
possible to say how any particular social system is going to develop.
and we do not, therefore, like Ricardo or Marx or Toynbee or
Hansen or Schumpeter set out a theory of the laws of evolution of
society. We do not believe that there are stages of development
through which every society must pass, from primitive stages through
feudalism to exchange economies, and do not therefore follow in the
footsteps of Comte or Marx or Herbert Spencer or Weber. All our
prediction is on the much more pedestrian level of enquiring how far
tbe changes wbich occurred in the wealthier countries as they
developed may be expected to repeat themselves in the poorer
countries if they develop. Sometimes we can answer fairly coo-
fidently; for example, to say that the proportion of the population
engaged in agriculture will fall, or that status relationships will give
place increasingly to contractual relationships. In other places we do
not know the answer, such as in predicting whether the birth rate will
fall as the standard of living rises, or whether war is an inevitable
product of economic growth. Much of the book is concerned with
noting the changes which have occurred in developing societies,
and in enquiring whether those who come after may be expected to
follow in the footsteps of those who went before. As for the leading
countries themselves, we hold it to be impossible to predict where
they will go next, since we do not believe that the future of the human
race is governed by immutable laws of which we have or can have
knowledge.

3. LA YOUT
The layout of a book on economic growth is largely a matter of
personal choice. The matters to be studied are so closely inter-related
that it does not matter where one begins. This book begins with the
effort to economize, and the beliefs and institutions which determine
how vigorous this effort is. Next it considers the role of knowledge in
growth, and the processes which facilitate both the accumulation and
the diffusion of knowledge. The study of resources per head opens
with a chapter on capital, and then continues with a chapter on
population. This in turn leads naturally to international trade, since
this is the outcome of different distributions of resources relatively
to population. The role of government in economic development is
not a separate subject; it reatly belongs to each of these chapters;
 INTRODUCTION 19
but it is convenient to treat government in a separate final chapter
because of its importance. In each chapter the approach is the same:
from the angle of consistency with growth we are interested in
economic relations, in institutions and in beliefs; and from the angle
of evolution we are interested in why things change, in how they
change, and in whether any trends can be perceived.
This division of our subject matter between the various factors in
economic growth makes it necessary to stress from time to time the
inter-relationship between the several factors, in the sense that
advance on anyone front will bring about advance on the others as
well. If more capital becomes available, for example from abroad, it
will as likely as not be associated with new technologies, and will
probably affect the pattern of institutions and of human attitudes.
If new knowledge is discovered, investment will be stimulated, and
institutions will feel the impact. If institutions are liberalized, human
effort will increase, and more knowledge and more capital will be
applied in production. Social change is cumulative, with the effect
that different factors reinforce each other.
Despite this inter-relationship, there are fashions in asserting that
some one factor is more important than all the others. To Adam
Smith, for example, and a long line of liberal economists, what was
needed to promote economic growth was primarily the right in-
stitutional framework: given this framework there was not much
need to bother about willingness to make effort, or about the accumu-
lation of knowledge, or about capital accumulation, since all these
were instinctive human reactions, inhibited only by faulty institutions.
To Malthus, on the other hand, one of the major obstacles in under-
developed countries was lack of demand, which we would translate
in these days as 'a low valuation of income in relation to leisure', and
this point of view has many adherents today. Another school fastens
upon low technological skill as the bottleneck; President Truman's
programme for under-developed countries, for example. which
claimed that technical assistance is what the under-developed chiefly
need from the developed countries. Or there is the school which
fastens upon capital as the bottleneck, claiming that if only the
capital were available new technologies could be made available
too, and that in the process of economic growth all institutions hostile
to ~onomic growth would be altered or swept away. And finally
there is the school which puts all the emphasis upon natural re-
sources, claiming, in effect, that every country gets the capital and the
institutions which its natural resources warrant. Corresponding to
these different emphases, we get the different meanings of the word
·under-developed'. A country may be under-developed in the sense
that its technology is backward, when compared with that of other
20 TH E THEORY OF ECONOM IC GROWTH

countries, or in the sense that its institutions are relatively un-

favourable to investment, or in the sense that capital resources per
head arc low when compared say with Western Europe, or in the
sense that output per head is low, or in the sense that it has valuable
natu ral resources (minerals, water, soil) which it has not yet begun to
usc. A country may be more under-developed in onc of these senses,
and less so in others, but in practice there is such close relationship
between these indices that it is odd to find men abusing each other
for using the word ' under-developed' in one sense rather than in
some other.
Of course, it is true that one obstacle to growth may stand out
above all others, in some particular place at some particular time,
either in the sense that the deficiency is greatest at this point, or else
in the sense that it is easier to make a start there than at any other
point. For example, it is possible to think of countries where the
principal contemporary obstacle to growth is institutions (e.g. bad
government, or bad tenancy laws) in the sense that more knowledge
and capital would come forth if tbe institutions were changed, but
not otherwise. It is equally possible to think of other places where
current institutions are not an obstacle to economic growth, and
where the principal shortage is capital. And there are still other
places where a good start could be made by taking new technologies
to the farmers, in the shape of fertilizers and better seeds. It is some-
times desirable to concentrate one's attention on a single problem
to the exclusion of most others. This, however, is only a temporary
tactic, in the sense that if one succeeds in breaking one bottleneck,
the result is usually that some other comes into prominence. If the
farmers take to the seeds and fertilizers, new capital will be needed
to handle the extra output; if capital becomes available, mortgage
and other investment laws must be made appropriate; if institutions
improve, some other obstacle to growth then comes into view.
Hence though the reformer may begin by working upon one factor
only, he has to bear in mind that if he is to have full success, much
other change is involved beyond the factor with which he is im-
mediately concerned.
In this book we separate the various causes of growth for analy-
tical purposes only. Since the causes are inter-related, the book must
be read as a whole if it is not to be misunderstood; each sentence,
or paragraph or chapter takes for granted what is written elsewhere,
and if torn from its context, may cease to be true. There are also
certain topics, e.g. religion, which have to turn up in several chapters,
each time in reference to some different aspect of economic growth.
Some confusion is inevitable when one bas to dissect a subject which
cannot be dissected. We have tried to keep confusion to a minimum
 INTRODUCTION 21
by making frequent cross-references in the text, but the reader who
wishes to get a complete view of any single topic must use the index
fo r this purpose.

BIBLlOGRAPHlCAL N01ll
At the end of each chapter there is a biliographical note giving references
for some of the subjects discussed in that chapter. These notes are not in-
tended to survey the whole of the literature; they list only a few references
which the student may find particularly helpful. In this first note we deal
with general works on economic development, with philosophies of
history, and with country studies.
Eighteenth century economists were greatly concerned with economic
growth, and almost any major treatise published in that century deals with
virtually the whole subject matter of this book. The subject went out of
fashion, however, in the second half of the nineteenth century. John
Stuart Mill's Principles of Political Economy, London, 1848, is the culmina-
ting work of this tradition, and is still worth reading. Frederick List was a
lesser writer, unorthodox in his approach to tariff problems, but also
specially interesting for his inAuence on German and on American thought;
see his The National System of Political Economy, London, 1909 (originally
published in German in 1844). Karl Marx was also in the classical
tradition; his output was enormous, but his economic writings are in-
telligible only to specialists. For a lucid account by a modern Manis! see
P. M. Sweezy, The Theory 0/ Copitalist Developmellt, New York, 1942.
The only twentieth century economist who came anywhere near to a
general survey of economic growth was J. A. Schumpcter, in his Socialism,
Capitalism, and Democracy, New York, 1942. (His The Theory of Economic
Deve{opmell1, Cambridge, 1934, originally published in German in 1912,
is very much narrower in scope than its title implies.) B. S. Keirstead,
The Theory of Ecollomic Change, Montreal, 1948, also covers only a part of
the subject. Students of Indian problems will find a very good statement in
B.Datta, The Economics of Industrializafion, Calcutta, 1952. W. W. Rostow's
The Process of Economic Growth, Oxford, 1953, is interesting chiefly as a
study in method. Half of S. H. Frankel's The Economic Impact 011 Under-
developed Countries, Oxford, 1952, deals with the definition and measure-
ment of national income, and the other half makes the point that capital
formation by itself will not ensure economic growth. For a brief intro-
ductory survey see United Nations, Measures for the Economic Develop-
ment of Under-developed Countries, New York, 1951.
Historians have given more attention to these matters than economists
in the twentieth century. A. J. Toynbee's A Stlldy 0/ History, London,
1934-9, is beyond the general reader, but it has been finely summarized
in a single volume by D. C. Somervcll, Toynbee's Study of History, London,
1946, which is well worth reading, despite the general hostility of historians
10 Toynbee's work. Another interesting builder of historical theories is
P. Sorokin, whose voluminous work is summarized by F. R. Cowell's
History. Civilization and Culture, London, 1952. On the attitude of his-
22 THE THEORY Of ECO NOMIC GROWTH

torians to theory see R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of His tory. Oxford, 1946.
Karl Popper also discusses theories of history and of prediction in The
Open Society and its Enemies, London, 1945. See also M. Ginsberg, The
Idea oj Progress, London, 1953.
It is desirable to read as widely as possible in the field of economic
history. There are many standard histories of the countries of Western
Europe and of the United States of America. Something should be known
of Soviet Russia; the most reliable statistics are in a book edited by A.
Bergson, Soviet Economic Growth, Evanston, 1953. Good introductions to
Japan are E. H. Norman, Japan's Emergence as a Modern State, New
York, 1940; and G. C. Allen, A Short Economic History of Japan, London,
1946. All the problems dealt with in this book would be settled if we
understood the rise and decline of Greece and Rome. Unfortunately, though
there is a large literature on this subject, it is still highly speculative. The
best treatment to date is in the appropriate volumes of the Cambridge
Ancient History, London, .various dates; see also M. Rostovtzeff, 'The
De ay of the Ancient World and its Economic Explanations', Economic
History Review, Vol. II, 1930.
Some acquaintance with the institutions of primitive peoples is also
necessary. C. D. Forde, Habitat, Economy and Society, London, 1934;
R. W. Firth, Primitive Polynesian Economy, London, 1939; M. J.
Herskovits, The Economic Life of Primitive Peoples, New York, 1940;
B. Malinowski, Argonauts of the Western PaCific, London, 1922.
 CHAPTER II

THE WILL TO ECONOMIZE

THE three proximate causes of economic growth, as we have said, are

economic activity. increasing knowledge, and increasing capital. In
this and the succeeding chapter we pursue the first.
By economic activity we mean effort directed towards increasing
the yield of a given effort or resource, or towards reducing the cost
of a given yield. To say that economic activity is necessary to econo-
mic growth is to say no more than that men are not likely to get morc
unless they try to get more. Growth is the result of human effort.
Nature is not particularly kind to man; left to herself she win over-
whelm with weeds. with floods. with epidemics and with other
disasters which man wards off by taking thought and action. It is by
accepting the varied challenges presented by his environment that
man is able, in innumerable ways, to wrest from nature more product
for less effort.
To accept the challenge of nature is to be willing to experiment, to
seek out opportunities, to respond to openings, and generally to
manoeuvre. The greatest growth occurs in societies where men have
an eye to the economic chance, and are willing to stir themselves to
seize it.
Now societies differ widely from each other in the extent to which
their members seek out and exploit economic opportunities. There is
a difference between countries, between groups in tbe same country
(e.g. regional, religious or racial groups), and between patterns of
behaviour in the same country at different stages of its history. These
differences may be traced to three distinct causes, namely to differ-
ences in the valuation of material goods relatively to the effort
required to get them, to differences in available opportunities, and to
differences in the extent to which institutions encourage effort, either
by removing obstacles in its way, or by ensuring to the individual the
fruit of his effort. Many of the observed differences in effort are due
to institutional defects, and social reformers who wish to promote
economic growth are mainly concerned with seeking to bring about
appropriate changes in institutions, whether by propaganda or by
law. There are, however. also real psychological differences in the
willingness to make effort. and we must analyse these differences
first. Needless to say the attitudes and the institutions a re not
independent of each other; we separate them here only for purposes
of analysis.
24 THB THEORY OF ECONOMIC GROWTH

1. THE DESIRE FOR GOODS

When we say that a particular group places a low valuation upon
goods relatively to effort, the difference may lie either in a lesser
appreciation of goods and services, or else in a higher psychological
cost of the effort required to got them. Under the first heading, the
lower valuation of goods may be due to asceticism, or to a higher
valuation of other activities. or to limited horizons. Under the second
heading we must remember that economic effort embraces all ways
of seeking out and using opportunities, not only work, but also
mobility and enterprise. We shall consider in turn attitudes to each of
these matters.

(0) Asceticism
Ascetic codes recognize special merit in consuming less than the
rest of one's fellows. Several paths lead to the conclusion that this is
the superior way of life. In the first place, some codes stress the value
of learning to control one's natural desires, for food, for sex, for
comfort and for other satisfactions; they encourage forms of fasting
and other discomforts as means of spiritual growth. In the second
place, earning one's living consumes time which might be given to
meditation or to religious exercises; not all religions take this view-
in some God is glorified as much in work as in prayer, and work is a
means of earning spiritual merit. In the third place, earning a living
sometimes brings out aggressive tendencies towards one's fellows,
and it is better to avoid this temptation by confining oneself to con-
suming as little as one can manage.
Most codes distinguish between what is expected of priests, or
others professionally engaged in practising, safeguarding or dis-
seminating the code, and what is expected of the laity. Priests are
generally expected to be poor. This is not always so even in the theory
of the matter; the priests of some religions, e.g. in Africa, are not
expected to be more ascetic than their fellows. Also, the theory is not
always put into practice, for, in many churches where ascetism is the
ideal expected of priest, there is nevertheless much wining and dining
and living in luxury. This distinction between theory and practice is
facilitated where a distinction is drawn between the priests and the
church . If the code does not prevent thech urch fromgrowing rich-and
hardly any religion opposes the accumulation of wealth by its church-
it is bard to expect the individual priests, who administer the wealth
of the church, to refrain from enjoying some of it for themselves.
The distinction between what the code expects of priests and what
it expects of the laity cannot be watertight, if only because the laity
are expected to model themselves to some extent upon the priests,
 THE WIL.L TO ECONOMIZB 2S
whose way of life is supposed to be the model of holiness. In the
matter of asceticism, however, thecode seldom demands of the layman
more than that he should practise various forms of asceticism (espec-
ially fasting) from time to time, or on specified days, or for specified
periods. And these periods of asceticism are usually matched by
corresponding festivals or feast days, when the faithful are en-
couraged to give themselves over to indulgence in varying degrees.
In origin, many of the fasts and the festivals are associated with the
seasons of agriculture; one fasts in the hungry period before the
harvest, and feasts in thanksgiving when the crop is garnered.
The only parts of the world in which the ascetic ideal is held before
the laity with any emphasis are the parts where Hinduism and
Buddhism hold sway, and even in those parts it is doubtful whether
this ideal actually influences the conduct of many laymen. It may be
that in these countries some people who might otherwise pursue a
business career are attracted instead to the priestly life, but this
happens everywhere. It may also be that the proportion so attracted
is larger than it is elsewhere, and that there are 'too many priests' in
the restricted economic sense that too much talent is withdrawn from
economic pursuits, and also that resources which the laity could
otherwise have used for capital formation have instead to be used for
supporting a disproportionately large class of priests. But this. if it
were so, would testify merely to the power of religion in those parts,
and to the attractiveness of the priestly life. The power of a religion
to attract large numbers into its professional service is not primarily a
function of whether or not it stresses the merits of asceticism. Coun-
tries as widely separated as seventeenth century Spain and contem-
porary Tibet are alleged to have been drained economically by an
excess of priests, but the allegation is more relevant to investigating
the forces which determine how much resources are available for
capital formation than it is to a discussion of the effect of asceticism
upon the behaviour of the laity.
It is safe to assert that this effect is small. Nowhere in the world
are laymen reluctant to seize opportunities of raising their standard
of living simply because they believe that it would be bad for their
souls to raise thei r current standard of living. They may not think it
worth the effort, but that is a different proposition, which we shall
discuss in a later section. If no effort were involved, very few lay-
men would refuse to enjoy a higher standard of consumption solely
from fear that this might stand between them and salvation. Thus, if
seeds of higher yield, or artificial fertilizers, were offered to the
farmers of India or Burma , nothing in their religious outlook would
stop them from applying these aids to their work, or from enjoying
the superior fruit which would result. Religion may deter people
26 THE THEOR.Y OF ECONOMIC GROWTH

from seeking a living in certain ways-we shaU come to trus later-

but it does not deter anyone from enjoying a bigber standard of life
which has been earned without sin.

(b) Wealth and Social Status

In most communities the attractions of asceticism are small when
compared with the attractions of wealth, either as a means to power,
or as a mark of superior social status.
The attractions of conspicuous consumption are a familiar theme.
Goods may even be desired for this purpose eveD though they cannot
be enjoyed. Many men acquire objects which they are not able to
enjoy, solely to emphasize their status- the literature is full of pianos
in houses where no one plays them, of private picture galleries owned
by insensitive millionaires, of cattle kept to show tribal status
instead of for meat or milk, of goods acquired for conspicuous waste
or destruction, and of similar examples of goods desired for show
rather than for personal enjoyment. These displays are practised
particularly by persons who are moving from a lower to a higher
social class, and who are anxious to be recognized in their superior
status. In the industrial countries they are much indulged in by the
noveaux riches. In the colonial countries, where the ruling classes
differ in race from the ruled, it will also often be found that the
middle and upper classes indulge excessively in conspicuous con-
sumption. This is because one form which tbeir nationalist self-
assertiveness takes is to show that they are 'as good' as their rulers,
at least in being able to build as big houses, or to drive in as big
cars, or to throw as expensive parties. This excessive consumption
often weakens the subject people, by throwing them into debt, and
by reducing the amount which they might save and invest in accu-
mulating wealth.
Wealth is also desired as a means to power-whether it be the
power of bribery, political power, power over employees, or other
forms of power.
Wealth is not, however, always the easiest road to power or
prestige. In modern capitalist society anyone who becomes rich can
move into the highest-or nearly the highest-social circles. In many
other communities this is not so. As in Hindu society, it may be the
priestly caste that all others respect; or as in old China, the learned
man. Elsewhere, it is the soldier; or prestige goes to birth in noble
families. In any country the most enterprising young men will try to
distinguish themselves in the ways which win highest distinction; if
the way lies in war, in hunting, in religion, in bureaucracy- wherever
it may lie, thither they will go. They will turn their thoughts towards
economic activity only if the successful organizers of economic
 THE WILL TO ECONOMIZE 27
activity can achieve the highest honours. In the early days of the
Soviet Union the organizers of economic activity were despised;
there was glory for the party man, or for the trade unionist, or for
the scientist, but the factory manager was held in low esteem. Today
all is different. The successful manager is very highly paid; is accorded
special privileges in housing, and in entertainment; is no longer
subordinated to workers in his own factory; and moves in the
highest social circles.
This is one sense in which it is true that wealth is desired more in
some countries than in others, and that the amount of effort given to
producing wealth is a function of the desire for wealth. This, however,
is merely a matter of degree. In every country of the world wealth
wins respect and prestige, even though in some there is a time lag,
and wealth may not acquire its full prestige until the second genera-
tion, Making money, nevertheless, always competes with other ways
of acquiring social status, and the proportion of intelligent and
enterprising young men attracted to this way of life is partiy a
function of the relative status of money making and of other
activities. Thus some believe that the relative status of money makers
is higher in the U.S.A. than it is in England, and higher in England
than it is in Burma, and that these differences of status partly
account for the differences in the rate ofeeonomic growth with which
they correspond, Similarly, most analyses of industrial revolutions,
both of those which have come off and of those which have failed,
enquire into the relative social status of the merchant class just before
the revolution, as compared with.-the status of aristocrats, scholars
and military classes. For example, differences in this respect between
China and Japan are usually given as part of the explanation why
their economic history has been so different in the last hundred years.
Similarly, the low status of trade in Spain, compa red with its status
in Elizabethan England, is not irrelevant to explaining why Spain
failed so signally to exploit her economic opportunities in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
It was at one time the custom to associate the present high status
of money making in Western capitalist countries with the changes in
the Christian religion which occurred during the Reformation and
the Counter·Reformation. It is true enough that mediaeval Christian·
ity tended to condemn commercial activities as a way of life, and
also regarded it as sinful for any man to want to become wealthy in
order to raise his social status and that of his family, Nowadays,
however, more importance is assigned to the growth of the opportu·
nities for making money, which began to be evident from about the
twelfth century, with the expansion of seaborne trade. As wealth
accumulated it became more respectable, and long before the
28 THE THEORY OF ECONOMIC GROWTH

Reformation the Christian theologians were engaged in adapting

their precepts in order to show that trade and usury were not
necessarily sinful activities. By the time the Reformation ·occurred
in the fifteenth century, this adaptation was already advanced. This
is an interesting illustration of the relationship between religious
change and economic change, which we shall be discussing more fully
in Chapter III (section 4(a», Since religion reflects economic change,
economic attitudes cannot be explained exclusively in religious terms.
On the other hand. if only because of the time lag in religious change.
the in8uence of religious beliefs upon economic behaviour is at any
time of great significance.
In almost every society wealth, prestige and power are closely
associated. Where societies differ fundamentally is in what the
wealthy do with their wealth, and in the sources of wealth to which
prestige attaches. In pre-capitalist societies rich men spend their
wealth in unproductive ways, whereas in capitalist societies they
invest it productively. There are not great differences in the degree of
inequality of income, as between stagnating and expanding econo·
mies, but it makes a great difference to the rate of economic growth
whether the rich spend their incomes on keeping retainers and on
building monuments, or whether they invest it in irrigation works, or
mines, or other productive activities. It is the habit of productive
investment that distinguishes rich from poor nations, rather than
differences in equality of income, or differences in the respect
accorded to wealthy men. Again, in so far as there are differences in
prestige attaching to wealth, what matters is the relative status of
those whose wealth is made or represented by productive investment,
as compared with those whose wealth springs from ownership or
inheritance of land. In most societies the landowners constitute the
aristocracy, and it is only in societies which have undergone con-
siderable economic expansion that rich men whose wealth is founded
upon commercial activities can move on equal terms with men whose
wealth is founded upon land. The really significant"turning point in
the life of a society is not when it begins to respect wealth, as such,
but when it places in the forefront productive invcstment and the
wealth associated therewith.
Behind the differences in attitudes to productive investment lie
many factors which we shall consider in more detail in Chapter V
(section 2(b». Not the least of these are differences of national
aspiration. Countries which arc anxious to be strong militarily, or to
be independent, or to colonize or conquer other countries, usually
also want to have economic strength, if only because this is necessary
in war. In our own day we can see this nationalist aspiration at work
in several countries. The colonial or formerly colonial countries are
 THE WILL TO ECONOMIZE 29
busily enquiring into the causes of economic growth, and framing
plans for economic expansion, partly because they want to raise the
standard of living of their peoples, but also because they wish to raise
their international status. The U.S.S.R. has forced through pro-
grammes of tremendous expansion at tremendous cost in human
misery. Great Britain, anxious to retain her status as a first class
power, is preaching the gospel of productivity, and so on. Differences
between countries in their attitudes to wealth are rapidly diminishing
because of the strong force of nationalist aspirations. And they will
diminish all the more as the resulting study of the possibilities reveals
opportunities for wealth hitherto unsuspected.

(c) Limited Horizons

We have argued so far that asceticism is not, in practice, a drag on
economic effort, and also that most men desire wealth, whether for
personal enjoyment, or for prestige and power, though it is also true
that tbe prestige of wealth, relatively to the prestige of other forms
of success, varies in different communities. We come now to what is
probably the most important limitation on men's desire for goods,
namely their limited horizons.
The point we wish to make here is that wants are limited because
the goods one knows about and can use are limited. The degree of
limitation varies widely from community to community, depending
upon the accumulated physical capital, upon the accumulated
cultural capital, upon habits and taboos, and upon sheer ignorance.
By physical capital we mean the physical environment which is
necessary for the enjoyment of particular satisfactions. This may be a
question of nature or of artifice. Thus people who have no access to
water do not require boats. Ice cream is not popular at the Poles, nor
furs at the Equator. There is not much demand for furniture among
people whose houses are small and dark. Electrical equipment-
gramophones, washing machines, toasters, vacuum-cleaners-
cannot be used in places where no electric current is laid on. Motor
cars cannot run where there are no roads, and so on. In most poor
countries there is not the accumulated physical capital to support
a high level of wants. The individual's house is small and there is no
electricity, gas or water laid to it. And there is a similar lack of other
capital. Thus the goods which the individual can buy and use are
extremely restricted.
By cultural capital we mean the background of knowledge
accumulated by the society. Thus, unless the individual can read he
has no use for newspapers, books, and other consumer goods whose
enjoyment depends on literacy. If the culture's musical appreciation
is at a low level, there is little demand for musical instruments or for
30 THE THEORY OF ECONOMIC GROWTH

musical entertainments. Similarly. the theatre, the cinema. the

sports stadium, the dance haU, and similar purveyors of mass
entertainment depend upon the nature of the people's culture.
Wants are limited, thirdly, by habits and taboos. At low levels of
living, food and clothing account for two-thirds of income, or more.
But these are just the fields of expenditure where social convention is
important. Thus it is hard to get people to improve their diets. if this
improvement means eating new sorts of food, or eating food pre·
pared in new ways. And there is similarly a limited market for styles
of dress which are not generally approved.
Finally, wants 3re limited by ignorance. In spite of the limitations
of physical background. cultural background, and habit or taboo,
there remain some goods which people would be willing to buy, and
to make the effort to get, if they knew about them. But the process of
spreading knowledge is slow.
These are among the reasons why in some primitive communities
people work very little. and are not tempted by offers of employment
even at what appear to be high wages. They are not tempted because
they would not know what to do with the money; or more exact1y
because the things they could buy with the money yield low marginal
satisfactions. It is also for these reasons that large increases of income
are so often misspent. by western standards. The money cannot be
spent as westerners would spend it. In particular, it has to be spent
not so much in acquiring new goods. ofa type not owned before. as in
buying more of the same-more drink, or more wives. or more cloth.
If wants are limited, it is only natural that people will work fewer
hours as the remuneration per hour increases. Conversely, if wants
are expansible, it is theoretically possible that people will work
more as remuneration per hour increases. In considering the
elasticity of wants we have to distinguish between the short run and
the long. In the short run a man has definite ideas of the standard of
living which he has to try to maintain, this being the conventional
standard of his class. If earnings increase his immediate reaction is
to work less, and if earnings decrease his immediate reaction is to
work more. In the longer run, however, his standards are adjustable.
If life has become harder, he may lower his standard, and revert to
shorter hours ; if life has become easier he will raise his standard, and
revert to longer hours. For, it is not only the standard of living that is
conventional, but a lso the number of hours worked. The immediate
effect of a change is to leave the standard more or less unchanged,
while altering the hours substantially ; whereas the ultimate effect is to
alter the standard substantially while hours revert towards the pre-
vious convention.
In primitive societies extra income beyond the conventional level
 THE WILL TO ECONOMIZE 31
cannot be enjoyed as much as in more advanced societies because of
the limited range of possible uses. There will be a demand for goods
if they can help to reduce further effort; bicycles reduce the need to
walk; guns make it easier to kill wiJd beasts, for food or for pro-
tection; tanks conserve water. Extra income may also give greater
power over one's fellows; by securing election to coveted positions;
by bribery; by purchase of slaves; by moneylending. Or goods can
be used for display; one can give big banquets; or have more wives;
or buy more clothes or jewellery; build bigger tombs; or impress one's
fellows by orgies of destruction, including destruction of some of
one's equipment (e.g. fishing boats in Polynesia). There is also a
temporary demand for useless novelties, both to satisfy curiosity.
and also for display. All these motives, of course, are present in all
societies, whatever their degree of development. What distinguishes
the primitive from the advanced societies is firstly that in the advanced
societies there can be more enjoyment of extra commodities for them-
selves, and not merely because of the opportunities they give for
display or power or reduced effort; and secondly that th'e range of
goods that can be enjoyed is so much wider.
The expansibility of wants increases as physical equipment in-
creases, as the culture becomes more complex, as the hold of conven-
tion weakens, and as knowledge of new goods is spread. This last is
naturally the key to the expansion of wants, since it is the knowledge
of new goods which sets in motion the forces that destroy convention
or change the physical environment. To understand how wants
become more elastic we must therefore understand how knowledge
of new goods is spread.
The process is one of imitation. New goods can be sold sometimes
merely by persuasion. The domestic innovator. or the foreigner who
brings the good from some other country, may try to sell it merely by
persuading people to try it out. but the good is not likely to become
popular until people see it in use by others. These others must usually
be persons whose status in the community is somewhat sJlperior, so
that the rest of the people wish to imitate them. There are exceptions
to this ; television has everywhere spread more rapidly among the
common people than it has among people of superior status.
Nevertheless it is generally the rule that new goods are adopted first
by the upper classes- if only because these can usually afford them
first, and are freer from the restraints of convention~nd are later
taken up by the lower classes.
The speed of diffusion therefore depends, among other things,
upon the relations between the upper and the lower classes. It depends
on whether they live mixed up with each other, so that the poor can
see what tbe rich consume; or whether the rich live in their own
32 THE THEORY OF ECONOMIC GROWTH

separate part of the town or of the country, enjoy their leisure in

exclusive clubs or other surroundings, and avoid social mixture with
other classes. It depends, again, on whether the rich encourage the
poor to imitate them, or whether there afC laws or customs which
deter the poor from consuming the sort of things which the rich
consume. It depends also on the degree of social mobility. since if
it is easy for members of the lower classes to rise, there will be some
desire on the part of those who are rising to display their changing
status by adopting the consumption habits of the rich. The morc
democratic the community, in terms of mixing together socially, the
more elastic wants will be, in terms of effort.
Societies differ in the extent to which the spread of new goods is
hindered by difficulties of diffusion, in comparison with other
difficulties. In primitive societies it is more probably lack of equip-
ment, and such cultural lags as illiteracy, that limit wants rather than
ignorance of new goods. This was not so in the days when these
countries were cut off from foreign contact. But in these days, with
foreigners in their midst living at high and envied material standardS,
most of the people in these countries could think of ways of spending
extra income, if it were not that their houses are small, and that
electricity, gas and water are not available on tap. Much extra income
Hows into better housing and furniture. On the other hand, in a
country like England, the limit to the desire of the lower classes for
more goods is more probably lack of desire to imitate the better off,
with telephones, or cars, or refrigerators or expensive clothes, and
this is because the undemocratic social (as distinct from political)
traditions of the country cause the lower classes to be more satisfied
to accept their material station in life than are the corresponding
classes in the United States.

2. THE COST OF EFFORT

So much for men's attitude to wealth. We turn next to men's
attitude to the effort required to obtain wealth. For, given equal
attitudes to wealth, men will nevertheless make unequal efforts to
acquire it if their attitude to effort is different.
This is merely a way of saying that men value other things·besides
material wealth. They value leisure; they value their good relations
with each other, which may be disturbed by a too aggressive search
for wealth; they value the company of friends and relations whom
they would have to leave behind if they migrated to better economic
opportunities; and they have prejudices which prevent them from
taking advantage of all the opportunities which they might otherwise
exploit.
 THE WILL TO ECONOMIZE 33
(a) The Attitude to Work
We begin with the attitude to work. Given an equal desire for
goods men will work less if work seems more arduous to them than
if it does not. This is partly an objective and partiy a subjective
matter.
Work is objectively more arduous if a given job exhausts one man
more than it docs another. This may be due to differences in his
physical constitution, to differences in his state of health. or to
differences in his environment. In addition work may seem sub-
jectively more arduous if one is less well disposed to work as a way
of life.
The physical constitution differs between races and between
individuals of the same race. For example, when Indians were
introduced to the West Indies after the emancipation of the Negro
slaves, the planters preferred the Indians for the regularity with
which they worked, but they preferred the Negroes for their superior
physical strength. It is not certain how much of these differences in
pbysique is due to differences in nutrition or in environment, and how
much is due to biological inheritance. In any case, willingness to work
and physical strength do not necessarily correlate well, as the
example cited shows.
Malnutrition and chronic debilitating disease are probably the
main reason why the inhabitants of most under-developed countries
are easily exhausted. And this creates a chain which is hard to break,
since malnutrition and disease cause low productivity, and low pro-
ductivity in turn maintains conditions of malnutrition and disease.
Modern capitalist firms, working in such environments, find that it
pays them to take a close interest in the food and in the health of their
employees. Some mining finns in Central Africa feed new recruits
on improved diets for several days before sending the recruits into
the mines. There are also many firms, not confined to mining, which
issue free balanced rations, or provide a midday meal, or at least
subsidize meals, in order to ensure that their employees are well fed.
Similarly it pays to provide free medical treatment, and to ensure that
the workers live in healthy surroundings. Even in advanced industrial
countries, such as the U.S.A. and England, many firms think it pays
them to provide cheap midday meals, especially if they have many
women employees, since women especially are alleged to be willing
to save on meals in the interest of their children, or of buying them-
selves clothes, or of other forms of expenditure.
The environment in which one works also determines how
exhausting it is to work. Thus it is unpleasant to live in great cold
or great heat; the body seems to function best at a temperature of
between 60°F. and 75°P., with moderate humidity. This gives an
c
34 THB THEORY OF ECONOMIC GROWTH

advantage to the temperate climates Over the tropical climates.

Similarly, students of modem factory practice emphasize the im·
porta nee to productivity of correct lighting, heating and ventilation;
of rest pauses; of correct seating; of the elimination of unnecessary
motions; and generally of pleasant physical conditions. It is also
exhausting and unpleasant to work if one's companions in work are
not congenial, and this too has given the industrial psychologists
food for thought. It is not easy to prescribe the conditions of COD-
geniality. Some men like working with their relatives, while others
do not; some like big groups, some small; some prefer strict dis-
cipline and regulation. while others prefer more scope for individual
decision. It is hard to define the conditions for happiness in the
working group, but there is no doubt of their importance.
Finally, some work is more ex.hausting than other work either
because it requires more energy per unit of time, or because it is
more unpleasant.
These factors may cancel each other out. Other things being equal,
men may work longer in an exhausting job than in an easy job if the
social atmosphere is more attractive in the former than in the latter.
Or men in poor physical condition may work longer than men in
better condition if they have also better conditions in which to work.
We turn next from differences in the strain imposed by the work
itself to differences in the attitude to work.
Let us suppose that two men have the same wants, in the sense
of their desire for material things; and that the jobs they do are
objectively equally arduous and unattractive; but that one has a
marc remunerative job than the other. We cannot then conclude that
the one with the more remunerative job will necessarily work shorter
hours than the other. It depends on his attitude to work as such.
Work is a means of acquiring goods and services, but it is also a way
of life, and as such it is more attractive to some men than to others,
and to some groups than to others. Everybody regards work partly
as a nuisance, and partly as a virtue, but some groups emphasize
more the nuisance aspect, while others hand down to their children
the idea that work as such is a virtue.
These differences of attitude correspond often to differences of
religion. Some religions teach that salvation, or spiritual fulfilment,
is found mainly in meditation or in prayer. Others teach that it is
found also or alternatively in work, both because work disciplines
the soul, and also because we have a moral duty to make the best use
of the talents and resources with which God has endowed us, and to
serve our fellow·men thereby. There is, nevertheless, the usual diffi·
cutty in deciding how much importance to attribute to religion in
economic matters. First, there is the distinction we drew before,
 THE WILL TO ECONOMIZE 35
between what a religien expects 'Of its priests, and what it expects of
its laity. If as is so often the case, it expects its priests to pray but its
laymen to work, it will diminish the community's economic effort
only if it attracts excessive numbers into the priestly life. Even if the
religion puts the emphasis upon meditation for the laity, and dis·
courages econemic preoccupations, there is the further difficulty of
assessing how effective its precepts are, since so many men will seize
opportunities for making wealth even if their religion disapproves.
Behind all this lies the further question why a quietist religion is
acceptable to the community. ReligiDus precepts tend tD aCCDmmo·
date themselves to the cDmmunity's ways 'Of making a living. Hence
to say that peeple do not work hard because their religion dees not
encourage them te may net be te give a fundamental explanatien;
it may equally be that the religien does net at present stress werk
because the other circumstances 'Of the cemmunity. envirenmental or
social, de net bring hard werk inte the ferefrent 'Of values.
We cannet be certain what these ether circumstances are which
produce differences in the attitude to werk. Bielogical differences are
alleged, as also the unpleasantness or productivity of the work, and
also the social structure of the community. In analysing these
facters it is impertant te remember that there is always a lag between
an attitude and the Ccnditions which have produced it. That is te say,
if we want to knew why a community believes what it believes, we
must leok nct te its present bielegical cempesitien, 'Or social struc-
ture, 'Or what yeu will, but te cenditiens decades or centuries earlier,
when its traditiens were being formed.
Let us take first the bielegical facter. Seme individuals have more
energy, 'Or more dispesition te werk than others, because 'Of a
bielegical inheritance not related te their environment. There are
milliens 'Of people who believe unshakeably that the proportion of
these biologically industrieus perSens is greater in seme races 'Or
countries than it is in other races 'Or countries. There are also
millions whe believe that the distribution of the biologically indus·
trious or lazy does not vary from race to race, and that the observed
differences can all be explained in terms of physical environment and
cultural traditien.
The great majority of the world's scientists deny that there is
acceptable evidence linking human attitudes with racial bielogy. If
we cenfine ourselves, however, to localities, while we are still deveid
of evidence. we have at least seme plausible theories. Thus, if a
country is subject te repeated disasters or crises of a kind where
the biologically energetic survive, while the rest perish, then it follews
tautelegically that the biolegical inheritance of this cemmunity will
censtantly improve in terms of energy. The difficulty of course is te
36 THE THEORY OF ECONOMIC GROWTH

define the circumstances in which tbe difference between survival and

death depends upon biologically inheritable energy: in most crises
survival owes as much to upbringing, to cunning, and to luck. Again,
we have the theory that a country peopled by immigrants will show
more energy than onc which has been settled for a longer period (all
countries are peopled by immigrants) because immigrants tend to be
more enterprising than those they leave behind, and because the
hardships of migration and settlement tend to weed out the unfit.
The difficulty here is to be certain that the biological factors are
dominant in determining who becomes a successful immigrant.
Immigrants certainly tend to be more energetic than those they leave
behind, or than those they come to live amongst, but this may be
merely because the stresses to which they are subject are greater, and
so call forth greater performance.
Biological explanations of differences in group attitudes can
neither be accepted nor be rejected. We can certainly reject the idea
that one race is superior to another, in the sense that all members of
one race are superior to all members of another in performance tests.
But as to the distribution of superior, ordinary and inferior between
different groups we can say nothing at present. Our explanations of
group differences have therefore to be confined to differences in
physical and cultural environment.
We come then second ly to the unpleasantness of the work. We
have already seen that work may be particularly arduous in itself, or
because of the physical condition of the worker, or because the
physical or social environment in which it has to be done is uncon-
genial. We argued then that people might be expected to work less in
these circumstances. The argument is reversed, however, jf we are
asking not how much work is done in pleasant compared with un-
pleasant circumstances, but rather what attitude to work grows up.
For, if the work is unpleasant, people may have as it were to force
themselves to do enough of it to keep themselves alive. And those who
let themselves be put off by its unpleasantness may not survive. In
these circumstances parents may begin to teach their children that
work itself is a virtue, and is something to be done for its own sake,
perhaps even because it is unpleasant. This tradition may be handed
down, and may survive changed conditions, so that even when the
work to be done ceases to be unpleasant men may continue to work
with as much grim determination as before.
Exactly the same line of argument can be applied to work that is
relatively unproductive. Thus one may reason as follows. In countries
where it is easy to make a living, work is seldom regarded as a virtue,
since men's habit is to make a virtue of necessity. At the other
extreme, countries where it is exceptionally hard to make a living
 THE WILL TO ECONOMIZE 37
may discourage effort. Intermediately, work is a virtue in countries
which are hard, but not too hard. That is to say in countries where it
is possible to attain a good standard by reasonable effort, but where
without such effort men will perish. Hardness may be due to over·
crowding, to soil of only moderate fertility, to recurrent drought or
hurricane, or to other misfortune. In such countries children will be
taught that work is a virtue, and will be shown the poverty of persons
who failed to keep at their tasks;and they in turn will hand thetradi-
tion down to their children.
All explanations based on environment have, however, to face the
fact that attitudes are not constant; the same country displays
opposing tendencies at different times. Explanations of attitudes have
therefore to be historical as well as environmental; that is to say, if
they are relying upon environment they have to show when and why
the environment changed to bring about the differences which they
are explaining. This is particularly damaging to those explanations of
attitudes which rely upon climate, since the same country shows
quite different attitudes at different times in its history; this is why
some of these explanations seek to show changes in climate, for
example in accounting for the decline of the Roman Empire. Most of
the environmental explanations of traditions of hard work involve
some sort of historical shock to the community, which has challenged
the people to display their best qualities of endurance-such as
defeat in war, or the onset of famine, or the hardship of a great
migration. However, it must ,take something more than a great his-
torical hardship to stiffen the will of a people, or else it would seem
to be a mere accident whether a community subjected to hardship
becomes despondent and discouraged, or alternatively finds courage
and inspiration therein.
A different kind of explanation connects the community's attitude
to work with the behaviour of its upper classes. According to this
explanation work is more highly regarded by the people in general in
those communities where it is the tradition for everyone to work than
it is in communities where the rich traditionally live in idleness. For
men imitate their social betters, and if these find it degrading to work,
others also will work as little as they can. For example, in the slave
communities of the New World, the plantocracies were much given
to going on picnics and to having a good time, and there was much
absentee ownership. The middle and working classes of these com·
munities to this day 3how a greater propensity to consume lavishly
than they do to work, and this may plausibly be explained by saying
tbat they have inherited the idea that work is fit only for slaves. Tbe
distinction we are making is not between equalitarian and inequali·
tarian societies, but between tbose where the rich work and those
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
 Contents
Editor’s Foreword v
Chapter One. THE STUDY
1
OF THE POLITICAL NOVEL
The Importance of the
1
Political Novel
The Nature of the
Political Novel:
1
Problems of Definition
and Selection
Characteristics of the
3
Political Novel
The Novelist and the
4
Political Scientist
The Purposes of This
8
Study
Chapter Two. THE NOVEL
AS POLITICAL 10
INSTRUMENT
The United States 10
Harriet Beecher Stowe
10
and the Civil War
Albion Tourgée: The
Blunders of 11
Reconstruction
Perennial Theme:
12
Corruption
 Upton Sinclair: 12
Corruption Plus
Radicalism
Growing Political
Consciousness: 1930 to 13
1954
John Steinbeck: The
14
Party Organizer
Sinclair Lewis: Native
14
Fascism
John Dos Passos and
Ernest Hemingway:
15
Liberal Causes
Abroad
George Weller:
International 16
Communism
Norman Mailer: The
17
Extreme Left
Novels of the Cold
17
War
Great Britain 19
Benjamin Disraeli:
19
Revitalized Toryism
Henry James: The
Breakup of Victorian 20
Tranquillity
Joseph Conrad: Early
21
Cloak and Dagger
E. M. Forster: The
22
Problem of Imperialism
Aldous Huxley and 23
George Orwell: The
 Future in Perspective
The Continent 23
Ivan Turgenev and
Fyodor Dostoyevsky:
23
Nihilism and Its
Rejection
André Malraux: Pro-
24
Communism
Ignazio Silone:
Disillusionment on the 25
Left
Arthur Koestler: The
26
Bolshevik on Trial
Africa 26
Alan Paton: The Race
27
Question
Chapter Three. THE
NOVELIST AS POLITICAL 28
HISTORIAN
Great Britain 29
George Eliot: The Early
Nineteenth Century in 30
the Midlands
Benjamin Disraeli and
Anthony Trollope: Whigs 30
v. Tories
George Meredith: The
31
Early Radical
Mrs. Humphrey Ward:
31
Victorian Portraits
H. G. Wells: England in
32
Transition
 Howard Spring: Labour 32
and the Course of
Empire
Joyce Cary: The
Edwardian Age and 33
After
The United States 33
Edgar Lee Masters:
34
Expansion and Conflict
Albion Tourgeé: Slavery
34
and Emancipation
John W. De Forest:
35
Post-War Corruption
Hamlin Garland: Enter
36
the Farmer
Winston Churchill and
David Phillips: Bosses 36
and Lobbies
Jack London: Marxism v.
37
Fascism, Early Phase
James L. Ford, Samuel
H. Adams, and Upton
38
Sinclair: Oil Men and
Anarchists
John Dos Passos and
James T. Farrell: 39
Communist Infiltration
Upton Sinclair and John
Dos Passos: Global War 40
and Politics
Post-War Directions 40
The Continent and 42
Elsewhere
 Joseph Conrad: Colonial
42
Politics and Revolution
The Soviet State: Its
43
Roots and Growth
Marie-Henri Beyle
[Stendhal]: Napoleonic 44
Panorama
André Malraux:
Comintern v. 44
Kuomintang
Jean-Paul Sartre: The
45
Shadow of Munich
Fascism through Italian
45
Eyes
Alan Paton: The Trek of
46
the Boers
Richard Kaufmann: The
47
Third Reich
Chapter Four. THE NOVEL
AS MIRROR OF NATIONAL 48
CHARACTER
Great Britain: A Self-
48
Portrait
Peaceful Change in the
48
Political Realm
The Fruits of
50
Imperialism
The United States: A
51
Self-Portrait
Forces of Corruption 52
The American Idealist 53
 Responsibility at Home 53
and Abroad
Italy: A Self-Portrait 55
Spain: An American
57
Portrait
Greece: An American
58
Portrait
France: A Composite
58
Portrait
Russia: A Composite
59
Portrait
Union of South Africa:
61
A Self-Portrait
Germany: A Self-
61
Portrait
Chapter Five. THE
NOVELIST AS ANALYST OF
63
GROUP POLITICAL
BEHAVIOR
Economic Groups 63
The Lumpenproletariat 63
Peasants 64
Labor 65
Proletarians 68
The Middle Class 68
The Rich and Well Born 69
Political Groups 72
Office Holders: Rules
73
and Skills
The Mechanics of 75
 Control
International
76
Communism
Analysis of Mass
78
Phenomena
Chapter Six. THE NOVELIST
AS ANALYST OF
79
INDIVIDUAL POLITICAL
BEHAVIOR
Motivation 79
Moral Problems and
81
Changing Values
The Successful
82
Politician
Political Pathology:
Deviates, Martyrs, and 84
Authoritarians
Men Behind the Scenes 88
The Disillusioned 88
The Role of Woman 91
Chapter Seven. SOME
93
CONCLUSIONS
Bibliography 96
 chapter one
The Study of the Political Novel

The Importance of the Political Novel

In an age in which progressively more men have engaged in politics
while the politics themselves have become increasingly complex,
any means for understanding these interrelated phenomena
becomes correspondingly more valuable. The techniques of science
are constantly being brought to bear upon this problem of
understanding. But one of the best means of enlightenment has
been available for more than a hundred years. Since its beginning
the political novel has fulfilled the ancient function of art. It has
described and interpreted human experience, selectively taking the
facts of existence and imposing order and form upon them in an
aesthetic pattern to make them meaningful. The political novel is
important to the student of literature as one aspect of the art of
fiction, just as is the psychological novel or the economic novel. But
it is important in a larger context, too. The reader who wants a vivid
record of past events, an insight into the nature of political beings, or
a prediction of what lies ahead can find it in the political novel. As an
art form and an analytical instrument, the political novel, now as ever
before, offers the reader a means for understanding important
aspects of the complex society in which he lives, as well as a record
of how it evolved.
The Nature of the Political Novel: Problems of
Definition and Selection
The political novel is hard to define. To confine it to activity in the
houses of Congress or Parliament is to look at the top floor of the
political structure and to ignore the main floor and basement which
support it. One has to follow the novelist’s characters, on the stump
and into committee rooms—sometimes even farther. But the line is
drawn where the political element is forced into the background by
the sociological or economic. The political milieu develops in part out
of the conditions described in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and John
Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. Although these books are
proletarian novels, to include them would be to open the door to a
flood of books that would spread far beyond the space limitations of
this study. Of course, proletarian novels which are also political
novels are included. Two such books are André Malraux’s Man’s
Fate and Steinbeck’s In Dubious Battle. But for the purposes of this
study, a cast of characters drawn from the proletariat is not enough,
even if they are oppressed economically and socially. They must
carry out political acts or move in a political environment. Also
excluded are novels such as Herman Melville’s Mardi which treat
politics allegorically or symbolically. Here a political novel is taken to
mean a book which directly describes, interprets, or analyzes
political phenomena.
Our prime material is the politician at work: legislating, campaigning,
mending political fences, building his career. Also relevant are the
people who influence him: his parents, his wife, his mistress, the girl
who jilted him, the lobbyist who courted his favor. The primary
criterion for admission of a novel to this group was the portrayal of
political acts, so many of them that they formed the novel’s main
theme or, in some cases, a major theme. These acts are not always
obvious ones like legislating. In Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo a mine
owner contributes financial support to political movements which will
provide a more favorable climate for his business. In Dubious Battle
presents labor organizers who manipulate a strike to serve the
political ends of the Communist Party. The terminology of the theater
can be helpful in bridging the gap between the world of actual events
and the world of fiction. It helps to show how various aspects of the
actual political process are translated into the forms of fiction. The
author may concentrate his attention upon the actors—the public
officials who make decisions and wield authority on behalf of the
community or the whole society. A good many of the actors may not
be public officials, but rather private citizens whose acts are political:
voicing opinions, helping to select candidates, voting, attempting to
influence the political process, revolting. These actors, and those
who are public officials, may demonstrate factors in the overall
drama which are predominantly political in their consequences:
attitudes, social power, social stratification. The novelist will be
concerned with the roles the actors play and the lines they speak,
the purposes they have and the strategies they employ. He may
concentrate upon the interaction between these actors or between
them and the audience—the public. An author may choose to
emphasize the drama as a whole rather than the individual actors,
highlighting the stage upon which it is played out—the country or
area of national life in which the scenes are laid. This emphasis upon
the drama will throw into sharp relief the events and decisions in
which the actors participate, and the framework of rules or custom
against which they take place.
The novels considered here deal with political activity at all levels—
local, state, national, and international. If, as von Clausewitz said,
“War is merely the continuation of Politics by other means,” one may
find politics in war, too. This study, therefore, includes works on
revolutionary as well as parliamentary politics. On the international
level especially one encounters group attitudes which are politically
relevant. The groups may be the conventional social, economic, or
political strata of British and American society, or they may be those
of the rigid Marxist state. Other relevant attitudes spring from
national characteristics, and many political novels identify some of
them. This definition is wide and inclusive, but so is political activity.
The primary sources of this study are eighty-one political novels.
Over half of them are by Americans. The next largest group is the
work of English writers. Other novels are taken from Italian, French,
German, Russian, and South African literature. These eighty-one
novels are the minimum necessary to give an understanding of the
political novel. At the same time, this is the maximum number that
could be included in the study. Only in the case of the English and
American political novel has an attempt been made to trace the
development of literary genre. Some of these novels are used
because they show artistic excellence, others because they show
how the form developed historically. More American than English
novels are used because they are more readily available, many of
them in inexpensive, paper-bound editions. It was not possible to
attempt the same outline with the other literatures because of the
brevity of this study. For some of them, too, a sufficiently
representative group of political novels was not available.
Most often the authors deal with their own countries, although they
sometimes write about a foreign land. Some of them are hard to
pigeonhole: Henry James, an American expatriate writing about
London terrorists in The Princess Casamassima; Joseph Conrad, an
Anglicized Pole analyzing Russian revolutionaries in Under Western
Eyes; Arthur Koestler, an Austrian-educated Hungarian living in
France, describing the Moscow trials in Darkness at Noon. This is
one reason why it is more fruitful for present purposes to avoid strict
concentration on national literatures and to accept valid insights into
national characteristics and behavior patterns no matter what the
language of their source.

Characteristics of the Political Novel

In The Charterhouse of Parma the witty and urbane Stendhal says,
“Politics in a work of literature are like a pistol-shot in the middle of a
concert, something loud and vulgar yet a thing to which it is not
possible to refuse one’s attention.” His own work contradicts the
great French novelist, yet his comment is perfectly accurate for many
other novelists. Politics in some modern novels of political corruption,
such as Charles F. Coe’s Ashes, do seem loud and vulgar, and in
books like Upton Sinclair’s the reader may hear not one pistol shot
but a cannonade. But this is not to say that the use of political
material must disrupt a work of literature. The trick, of course, is all in
knowing how. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote an artistically weak,
politically successful work in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, while Fyodor
Dostoyevsky produced a politically unsuccessful, artistically enduring
classic in The Possessed.
The quality of these novels varies widely, just as would that of a
group dealing with religion, sex, or any other complex, controversial
theme. In general, the European novels considered here attain a
higher level than the American books. This is partly because only the
better European novels are treated. But they are also superior to the
best American works, except for a few comparatively recent ones,
because of the wider variety of political experience presented, the
greater concern with ideology and theory, and the deeper insight into
individual motivation and behavior. This in turn is probably due to
several factors. From the time when the United States attained its
independence until the end of the first quarter of this century, it
possessed a relatively stable set of doctrines and frames of
reference (compared to those existing in Europe) within which the
individual led his political life. Although American parties rose and
declined, although the Union was preserved, its borders expanded,
and international responsibility accepted, this evolution was orderly
and limited compared to that which occurred in Europe. The
Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights
provided a stable yet sufficiently flexible political framework. Europe
during the same period reverberated with the French Revolution, the
Napoleonic Wars, the unification of Germany and Italy, and the
Russian Revolution. These were violent changes not only in theory
but in the actual form of government. It is not unnatural then that
American political novels range over a relatively narrower area, with
their main emphasis on local or national subjects, while those of
European authors delineate changing, conflicting, and radically
different ideologies and resultant events. It is only since the 1930s,
with the increase in centralized government, the impact of
international Communism, and the recent appearance on both the
Right and the Left of what seem to be threats to traditional American
freedoms, that the American political novel has begun to approach
the European in breadth of theme, concern with political theory, and
interpretation of varying political behavior patterns.
The larger number of bad novels in the American group is also due
to the fact that more American novels are treated. Because of their
greater availability both for research and teaching, it is possible to
show the evolution of this genre in the United States. In doing this
one is able to examine the good ones, old and new, such as Henry
Adams’ Democracy, John Dos Passos’ District of Columbia trilogy,
and Irwin Shaw’s The Troubled Air. One pays, however, by suffering
through period pieces such as F. Marion Crawford’s An American
Politician. Less obtuse politically but nearly as abysmal artistically, is
Paul Leicester Ford’s The Honorable Peter Stirling. One is
compensated, however, not only by the view of a developing genre,
but also by the recording of significant periods in American national
life and of the people who helped shape it, as in the Dos Passos
work, and by the sensitive and penetrating analysis of central
problems in contemporary life, as in Shaw’s novel.
The English political novel is also uneven. That its depths are not so
low as those in the American novel is due in part to the political
heritage which its authors share with their colleagues on the
continent. Its authors work from a long and rich political history in
which the evolution has been less violent but no less steady.

The Novelist and the Political Scientist

The differences between the methods of the political novelist and the
political scientist are worth studying. Their intentions are often at
variance. Whereas the scientist is dedicated to objectivity and
statistical accuracy, the novelist is often consciously subjective; if his
work is intended as a political instrument, as were Uncle Tom’s
Cabin and The Possessed, scrupulous attention to the claims of the
other side will invariably lessen the emotional impact and political
worth of the novel. If a scholar sets out to examine the rise of
Nazism, he will have to treat not only the Beer Hall Putsch and the
Reichstag fire, but German history and the German national
character as well. He will chronicle the effects of Versailles, the
staggering of the Weimar Republic, and the growing strength of the
Brown Shirts. He will be concerned with national attitudes, with the
relative strength of the parties that vied with the National Socialists.
His study will gauge the effects of the aging Hindenburg and the
demoniac Hitler on a people smarting from defeat, searching for a
scapegoat, and longing for a resurgence. And all this will be backed
with statistics where possible. It will be a cogently reasoned analysis
with documented references to available sources. Also, the study will
be aimed at a fairly homogeneous and well-defined audience. The
appeal will be intellectual. If emotion creeps in, the work is probably
bad.
The novelist who is to examine these same events will present them
quite differently, even apart from the techniques of fiction. If he is a
rather dispassionate chronicler of human foibles and frailties such
as, say, Somerset Maugham, he will probably portray a group of
people through whose actions the rise and significance of Nazism
will become meaningful. The reader will probably observe the drifting
war veteran, the hard-pressed workman, the anxious demagogue.
Out of these lives and their interactions will emerge an objective
study of the sources of a political movement and of the shape it took.
If the novelist is an enthusiastic Nazi, the book will reflect his
particular bias. The storm troopers will become heroic Horst
Wessels, the young women stalwart Valkyries, the Führer an inspired
prophet and leader. Out of the novel will come a plea for
understanding or a justification of violence and a perverted view of
German national destiny. The book will be emotionally charged, a
calculated effort to produce a specific desired response. If this series
of historical events is used by a Frenchman, they will undergo
another change. There will probably be an evocation of the Junker
mentality, of Prussian militarism, of hordes of gray-green figures
under coal-scuttle helmets. If this novel is not a call to arms, it will be
a warning cry to signal a growing danger. These three fictional books
will use the same staples of the novelist’s art, yet each will differ from
the others in motivation and attitude. They will portray aspects of the
same complex of events treated by the political scientist, but this will
be virtually their only similarity.
A disadvantage for the novelist is his need to make his book
appealing enough to sell and to make his reader want to buy his next
novel. Although the scientist too must make his work as polished and
interesting as he can, the novelist does not, like him, find his readers
among subscribers to the learned journals. He cannot rely upon
sales prompted by the need to keep abreast of research in a
specialized field. If a novelist is to stay in print, political savoir-faire
and intellectual capacity are not enough. He has to sell copies.
Perhaps this is one reason why all but a few of these novels have a
love story accompanying the political theme. Sometimes the love
story inundates it, as in An American Politician; in other novels, such
as Sinclair’s Presidential Agent, it is peripheral and pieced out with
flirtations. It may be that these novelists include this element
because love is as much a part of life as politics. Its nearly universal
presence is a reminder, however, of one aspect of the novelist’s task
and one way in which his work differs considerably from that of the
political scientist.
The advantages of the novelist’s method over the political scientist’s
compensate for the drawbacks. These advantages do not
necessarily produce a better work, one which gives more insight into
a problem or explains it better. They do, however, offer more latitude
and fewer restrictions. The novelist may use all the techniques of the
political scientist. Sinclair’s Boston is studded with as many
references to actual events, people, and documents as most
scientific studies, although it is permeated by a violent partisanship
which would make a scholarly study highly suspect. But this points
up one of the novelist’s advantages: he can use the methods of
scholarship to document his case and then supplement them with
heroes and villains who add an emotional appeal to the intellectual
one. This string to the novelist’s bow is a strong one. He can create
a character like Shaw’s Clement Archer in The Troubled Air, while
the scientist is forced to use opinion research, carefully documented
sources, and well-verified trends in treating the problem of
deprivation of livelihood as a penalty for suspected political
unreliability. Sometimes the scientist uses case histories, but the
subjects are often identified by initials and treated with such
antiseptic objectivity that almost no emotional impact comes through.
The loss of Clement Archer’s job, because he has employed actors
blacklisted for suspected Communist activity by a newsletter acting
as a self-appointed judge, presents this general problem with more
frightening immediacy and reader-involvement than an excellent
scholarly study could ever do. Archer becomes one embodiment of
the problem—a rather naïve but courageous liberal made into a
sacrificial goat because of his fight for what he believes to be
traditional and critical American rights. If he wants to, the novelist
can use historical personages to flesh out his story. Although the
reader does not see him in its pages, Dos Passos’ The Grand
Design uses the figure of Franklin D. Roosevelt in the background as
one of the mainsprings of the action. An individual may appear in
transparent fictional guise. The roman à clef has many
representatives in the political novel. Pyotr Verhovensky in
Dostoyevsky’s The Possessed has been identified as the
revolutionary Sergei Nechaev. Hamer Shawcross in Howard Spring’s
Fame Is the Spur is thought to be Ramsay MacDonald. The
governor-dictators who rampage through Dos Passos’ Number One,
Adria Langley’s A Lion Is in the Streets, and Robert Penn Warren’s
All the King’s Men look and act much like Huey Long. The novelist
ranges backward into time as does the scientist. Maugham’s Then
and Now brings to life the wily Niccolo Machiavelli, and Samuel
Shellabarger’s Prince of Foxes reexamines the sinister Cesare
Borgia. When the novelist goes forward into time he need not be
confined to a mathematical extrapolation of birth rates, trade
balances, or electoral trends. Instead, he can create, whole and
entire, the world which he thinks will grow out of the one in which he
lives or which he sees emerging. The scientist may attempt to define
the group mind or examine pressures toward enforced conformity in
political thought. But George Orwell in 1984 creates his own
terrifying vision of the world thirty years from now. And this story is
frighteningly believable. It does not even require Coleridge’s “willing
suspension of disbelief which constitutes poetic faith.” With its three
super states perpetually at war, its Newspeak vocabulary including
“thoughtcrime” and “doublethink,” its omnipresent Big Brother, 1984
reflects aspects of our world out of which the novelist’s vision grew.
Besides the political apparatus which Orwell builds, he creates a
protagonist, Winston Smith, one man out of all the masses of Party
members and Proles who revolts against the system, providing the
reader with a focus for personal association. The reader follows him
through his round of duties in the Ministry of Truth, into his state-
forbidden love affair, and finally down into the depths of the Ministry
of Love where he is tortured into conformity before he will be
“vaporized” and poured into the stratosphere as gas. If he likes, the
author can move at will seven centuries into the future, where Aldous
Huxley erected his Brave New World. From a world of
mechanization, deteriorating family ties, and ascendant pragmatic
science, he can artistically extrapolate a planet ruled cooperatively
by ten World Controllers. Embryos are conditioned within their glass
flasks and then decanted into a rigidly stratified society where
stability has outlawed change and Ford has replaced God. And there
are memorable people—sensuous Lenina Crowne, and the Savage,
a “natural man” who commits suicide rather than choose between
prehistoric primitivism and soulless modernism.
Not only does the novelist have complete freedom in time and
space, he has the right to use any of the devices found attractive in
communication since the first articulate primate squatting in the
firelight gave his interpretation of experience to his hairy brothers.
The point of the story can be driven home or made more palatable
with laughter, suspense, or a cops-and-robbers chase that will make
it memorable. Ernest Hemingway’s Spanish guerrillas and Ignazio
Silone’s Italian peasants are often amusing. The reader may
remember the inspired profanity or the droll proverbs; he will also
remember the fight against Fascism and oppression. From Darkness
at Noon the reader will take with him Rubashov’s midnight arrest, the
wait for the NKVD bullet in the back of the neck; he will retain, too,
the irony of the disillusioned Bolshevik destroyed by the monster he
helped create.
This attempt to differentiate the novelist’s approach from the
scientist’s is not meant to prove that the novelist’s is better. It is
simply different, representing another aspect of the difference
between science and art. Each discipline tries to describe and
interpret experience. Where one does it by means of well-defined,
rigidly controlled techniques within generally accepted boundaries,
the other is highly flexible, embodying a view of life shaped by an
individual set of preferences and dislikes, talents and blind spots.
Each of these divergent methods offers advantages and
disadvantages. One should not go to political novels expecting to
find, except in rare cases, complete objectivity, solidly documented
references, and exhaustive expositions of political theory. He should
not always anticipate credibility. When problems are presented, the
reader may not find answers or even indications of the directions in
which they may be found. But one cannot go to a scientific
monograph with the hope of meeting in its pages someone whose
life is an embodiment of a problem, or whose survival represents the
gaining of a goal, his death the losing of it.
These two approaches to the study of politics complement each
other, just as the physician and clergyman both mean to keep their
identical patient and parishioner well and whole. The novelist can,
however, enter well into the scientist’s field. When he deals with
actual events, he tries to record them as they happened. If the
names and places are changed, he is usually faithful to the manner
or meaning of the events. In Bricks Without Straw Albion W. Tourgée
assures the reader that these events or others exactly like them took
place during the Reconstruction era in the South, and there is no
reason to doubt him. Sinclair’s Oil! exhaustively treats the Sacco-
Vanzetti case; it is completely opinionated, but it is a historical
account, nonetheless, of one of the most memorable political cases
in American history. More than a historian, the political novelist is
also an analyst. He sees cause-effect relationships at work, he looks
into stimulus and response, motivation and satisfaction. Stendhal is
not content merely to describe military and political events during the
Napoleonic era; he goes beneath the surface to explain what some
of them meant.
The Purposes of This Study
This examination of the political novel will go beyond simply charting
its development. In order to examine it as a distinct literary form, it
will be necessary to discuss its practitioners, the literary techniques
they use, the purposes they aim at, and their success in achieving
them. More than this, there will be attention to the function of these
political novels, at the time they were written and now in our time. In
the forefront will be an attempt to show what the reader can learn,
whether he approaches this body of work from a particular discipline
such as political science or literature, or whether he goes to it as a
general reader wanting either enlightenment or entertainment.
The purposes and scope of each chapter indicate the purposes of
the study as a whole. Chapter Two, “The Novel as Political
Instrument,” examines the effect of the political novel on politics.
Some novels contain heroes presented against a political
background which might just as well have been mercantile or
medical; other novels are intended to have politics as their subject;
still other novels are meant to have definite political consequences.
This chapter is chiefly concerned with novels of this last type. But it
is necessary to look at others, too, for in creating life in his novel the
artist will often reflect his own preferences, and they may affect
those of his reader. Chapter Three, “The Novelist as Political
Historian,” describes the way in which the writer may weave into his
story the threads of history, recording not only the lives of his
creations, but actual events in the lives of nations. By virtue of his
special skills, he can recreate these events with a vividness found in
few scholarly histories. Chapter Four, “The Novel as Mirror of
National Character,” is devoted to an examination of the cultural and
national differences discernible in these novels. There appear to be
some denominators of political behavior which remain common no
matter what the scene of action. This chapter deals with the
numerators, the quantities which vary from culture to culture.
Chapter Five, “The Novelist as Analyst of Group Political Behavior,”
demonstrates the insight the novel can give into political actions
which derive from group attitudes, pressures, and responses rather
than individual ones. The novelist may use several indices to
determine how a society is structured, which of its groups is most
homogeneous, which most apparent in the effect it has upon the
body politic. Chapter Six, “The Novelist as Analyst of Individual
Political Behavior,” shows how the basic unit in all political equations
is treated. The novelist portrays the person who moves in the main
stream of politics and the one who stands on its edges. In most
cases the acts of these people are examined—their motives, their
effects. As in any other kind of fiction, characters are created who
are complete individuals, believable and unique. But sometimes they
are also typical of a number of people. Chapter Seven, “Some
Conclusions,” emphasizes the major points made in the study. It also
discusses what may be expected of the political novel in the future.
The annotated bibliography gives the author, title, and date for each
novel.
In terms of organization, this study proceeds from the most direct
relationship between the novel and politics to the least direct
relationship. Chapter Two shows how this art form can actually
influence the political process. Chapter Six, on the other hand,
indicates the way in which the novel treats the individual, who, with
the exception of the outstanding leader, has far less direct influence
upon politics than groups or nations. Chapter Three deals with the
way in which the novel has recorded some major events in the
political scientist’s field from the early nineteenth century to the
present. Chapters Four through Six proceed from larger to smaller
political units.
In short, the aims of this study are to indicate the gradual
development of the political novel in England and the United States,
to show what it has produced in several other countries, and to
demonstrate the insights it can give in this area of human behavior to
students of literature, politics, and related disciplines, and to the
general reader.
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