Poverty of development economics

The idea for Hobart Paperback 16 arose out of concern within the Institute at the extensive and mostly uncritical attention the so-called 'Brandt Report' on International Development Issues (and its follow-up memorandum, Common Crisis) was attracting in Britain in contrast to the rest of the industrialised world, except perhaps for Scandinavia, the Netherlands, and Austria. It may not be a coincidence that interest in the Report has thus been highest in precisely those industrialised countries where the welfare state has reached its apotheosis. For, with its accent on wealth distribution rather than wealth creation, its vigorous advocacy of international transfers of income and collectivist regulation of the world economy, and its distrust of markets and relative neglect of incentives for private entrepreneurial effort, the Report enthusiastically embraced the assumptions and attitudes which lay behind the evolution of the most comprehensive - and increasingly unaffordable-state welfare systems of the developed world.