ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the problems and opportunities faced by late industrializers in the global economy. It emphasizes the specific conditions faced by late industrializers, stressing the crucial role of global factors in influencing development paths in the Third World. The pessimists tend towards the view that late industrialization fails to conform to the requirements of the model, while the optimists believe that the world economy is actively promoting such a model. Both positions point to important aspects of the relationship between developing countries and the global economy — the pessimists focus on the constraints while the optimists emphasize the opportunities. Moreover, the pessimists’ argument that late industrialization only benefits a small proportion of the population embodies a conceptual distinction at the core of dependency theory, which is that an understanding of “genuine” or “national” development as a process which delivers the goods of increased social welfare, more egalitarian income distribution, full employment, and so on.
