Todaro Text. The Subject of the Chapter

¶ … Todaro text. The subject of the chapter is development policymaking and the roles of market, state and civil society. THe chapter first discusses the proper balance between public policy and the associated private markets. The chapter then talks about the perceived "mystique" that can exist when it comes to the economic planning process and what can or might need to go into it. The book then discusses how this planning can and should manifest in a developing country. Factors involved include the mix of industries, foreign companies, domestic companies, taxes and so forth. The book then gives a number of reasons why this planning is all important including market failures, resource mobilization/allocation, foreign aid concerns and so forth (Todaro, 2012).

Section 11.3 talks about the three stages of planning and aggregate growth models that exist. There are often multi-sector models and sectorial projections for each of them. There is always the need to do a social cost/benefit analysis for anything that will occur. Mentioned earlier was market failure and there can also be government failure. Plans can go awry, bad data can be used and so forth. It was noted that there was a shift towards free markets in the 1980's and that the market economy is now fairly dominant. There is a commonly debated topic of what level of role the state should have when it comes to economics. There has, however, been a shift towards the development of a political economy. There are associated theories regarding policy formulation and reform. Reform, of course, is influenced based on the voting patterns that underpin votes on said reform. The book has a section that questions what is better for faster growth with the choices being democracy and autocracy. There is also talk of how non-government organizations (NGO's) are involved and to what degree they should be (Todaro, 2013).

The next section, that being section 11.9, talks about the problem of corruption and how best to tackle and deal with it. Bribery, for example, has gotten so pervasive that there are actually firm statistics on how much of a firm's resoruces and revenue are taken up by the bribes that have to be doled out and they are also measured as compared to the size of a household. The democracy/autocracy question earlier is then buttressed (or conflicted?) with the question that appears next and that is the amount of participation that occurs when development is underway. The chapter then concludes with a case study about the prior-mentioned NGO's (Todaro, 2013).

Chapter Critique

The chapter covers a lot of room and topics as it goes along its way. One topic that has to be centered on is corruption. There are many countries where corruption is literally an art form and that fact cannot be glossed over or ignored. Indeed, countries like Mexico and many others where power is in the hands of the money-holders and/or the police state are havens for this practice and the odds of things improving while those people are in power is next to none. About the only thing worse than economy rife with corruption is one that is led by a dictator and/or is run as a police state. Extreme examples of this, at least in the eyes of many, would include North Korea, Iran, Cuba (although they are better than they were) and Mexico.

Another topic that rings loud for the author of this critique is the democracy vs. autocracy thing. Of course, the latter is when a person or group rules with total power. While there is a case for some people and situations where the people simply cannot be trusted to want or desire the right thing, having a country where the people have no voice is a non-starter for obvious reasons. A good example of this would be the situation in Egypt. Even if it was mostly peaceful, Hosni Mubarak was a dictator and the will of the people was not being heard. However, when his successor (Morsi) took power, he tried to take over everything including relegating most powers to him. In other words, he was trying to himself become a dictator. Thankfully, the military would have none of that. The point is that even if the people are hard-headed about what money is spent on what, ruling with an iron fist is a non-starter except in extreme circumstances and an autocracy would never be the answer. For example, the United States building after Iraq was invaded would be an exception. However, the duly elected government in that country later took over and that is the way it should have been.

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