ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses and analyses the ideas of economists and social scientists who have broken with economic orthodoxy and also have moved beyond the
framework of the developmentalist economists considered in the previous chapter. These heterodox economists do not believe that relatively minor changes in economic conditions, such as an increase in foreign aid or a sudden increase in investment, will be sufficient to create the ‘big push’ or the ‘take-off’ into sustained growth, as did the developmentalists. In fact, many of the heterodox economists would argue that such limited changes, within the context of the existing structures and institutions prevailing in less-developed societies, might result in a strengthening of backward socio-economic structures, consolidating adverse path dependence. For the heterodox economists, the changes required to propel the development process forward are more fundamental, more sweeping, and more profound.
