Walt Whitman Rostow

Walt Whitman Rostow (October 7th 1916 - February 13rd 2003) was an American economist . He was special adviser of the White House of 1961 to 1968.

Contributions

One owes with the American economist W.W. Rostow a vision extremely linear and discussed of the development in five great stages of the industrial society (stated in stages of the economic growth , 1960). The company of origin, known as traditional company , saw only exploitation of the ground, it is relatively hostile with progress and the social hierarchies are fixed there. Its slow evolution gradually leads it to fill the prerequisites on takeoff . The change is more easily accepted there, allowing that the economic growth exceeds the population growth, thanks to the agricultural revolution in particular. Political and religious upheavals occur there (the Reform, the English revolution, the war of independence of the United States, the French revolution etc).
Then arrives the shortest stage and most decisive, “takeoff” or takeoff in English: during a score of year the massive investments in industry allow a major and durable inflection rate/rhythm of the growth (0,2% on average per annum before XVIIIe, 1,2% with XIXe). An about sixty years later, new industries will replace that of the takeoff (second industrial revolution, for the countries of the first industrial revolution): the standards of living improve. The companies then reached the stage of “maturity” before the beginning of the mass production. The growth leads to the ultimate stage of the company: the “consumption of mass” (the roaring twenties in the United States, after Second world war in Western Europe).

Widening the model with the outside of the historical executives, one can say that the “least advanced countries” are still at the first stage, the second characterizes the “developing country”, the third the “new industrialized countries”…

Criticisms

One of criticisms most serious of this theory was developed two years later by the economist Alexander Gerschenkron ( Economic backwardness in historical perspective , 1962). It shows that the countries experiencing a later development, benefitting from the history of the nations having preceded them, know an accelerated correction and jump even certain stages.

See too

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