ABSTRACT
Michael Lipton is the principal advocate of the thesis that the primary explanation for the internal gap between rich and poor is something he calls “urban bias.” He argues that even though developing countries sympathize with the plight of the rural poor; they consistently concentrate scarce development resources in the urban sector. The result is that the urban sectors, which are already well-off in a comparative sense, get an increasing share of national income, which exacerbates the inequalities. In the book from which this chapter is drawn, Lipton tries to show that it is in the interests of the elites of developing countries to maintain this urban bias since they benefit directly from it. Critics of Lipton’s thesis claim that historically there has been a rural bias in development and that much political power continues to reside in the hands of the rural elite. One might also ask if there is anything about the cultures found in developing nations that encourages policies favoring one sector over another; rural or urban biases (if they truly exist) might be a function of conditions established by the international environment.
