THEORY OF STAGES OF ECONOMIC GROWTH IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

SUMMARY The study of economic history attempts to reveal the causes of the growing international economic disparity and to identify the strategic factors of economic change. The historical inductive method, analysed economic history in terms of stages of growth. The underlying idea of the concept of stages, found in L ist , M arx , the German historicists, and revived in a modern form by R ostow , is that every society passes several phases of economic growth, from infancy or primitive stage to maturity or highly industrialised society. However, the essence of stages in different concepts was not uniform, neither was the indispensability of each and everyone of the stages uncontested. W eber , in particular, opposed the monistic approach, and suggested the concept of ‘ideal types’ from which realities are necessary deviations. M arx's contribution to modern growth theory lies in his dynamising of the classical theory through his expanded reproduction function, envisaging both capital and labour, and their qualities, as the strategic factor of growth, rendering possible both a highly industrialised and an equalitarian society, while L ist's model can be considered the origin of A. G. B. F isher's and C. C lark's primary, secondary and tertiary sectors. Even in S chumpeter , stages and periodisation of growth can be easily traced, although they are chiefly explained in terms of technology, entrepreneurship and business cycles. Among the modern growth theorists, mainly R ostow revived the concept of stages and the notion of a ‘threshold’ rate of investment as the strategic factor of expanded reproduction and development, while W. G. H offmann with his shift from consumer‐ to capital‐goods industries again calls to life Marxian transition as well as the three‐sectors concept. Like his predecessors, L ist with industrialisation and M arx with the capitalist stage, also R ostow is mainly preoccupied with one particular, ‘take‐off’ stage. Despite its flaws, R ostow's concept has become a useful tool of historical and positive analysis as well as a framework for normative models fervently looking for strategic factors of change, and some lessons of economic history. It also brought to the fore the rather paradoxical recent development in the economic camp, with ‘new economic historians’ employing purely quantitative methods of research, and growth theorists looking for help (and desirable quantification) to qualitative variables to explain past and present growth trends and to shape adequate growth models.