Wealth of poor nations

This book by one of South East Asia's most experienced development planners considers the condition of the Third World economy. It investigates the structural factors and historical forces, mostly operating in the capitalist world, which underlie the experience of the Third World over the last forty years.

The book also provides a powerful critique of many of the development strategies that have been employed over this period, and suggests that the miscon ceptions contained in these strategies have done most damage to North-South relations in recent years. In particular, the book argues that it is the failure to relate analytically the so-called social factors to economic growth and productivity which has been the most disturbing issue. Health, education, income distribution and employ ment must be seen as determinants as well as the results of growth. Their relations to economic parameters need to be understood so that more reliable clues to the choice of investments and public expenditures may be discovered.

The recent literature in development studies has not produced a more cogent analysis of the fundamental problems affecting the Third World.