ABSTRACT
If there is an advantage to backwardness, or so argues I. M. D. Little, it is that modern techniques can be acquired from abroad far more cheaply than they can be developed and invented in a Third World country (Little 1982). So it would seem inevitable, as Marx predicted (Marx 1853), that industrial technologies transferred to the Third World would “take root” and engender a sustained process of industrial growth. With the exception of the Asian “miracle economies” of Taiwan, Singapore, and South Korea, however, the late entrants – the countries that have attempted to acquire industrial technology after 1945 – typically find that industrial development leads to results very different from those initially envisioned. For most late entrants, industrialization may actually worsen the position of a poor country vis-à-vis the advanced industrial nations.
