Modish thought, dirigisme, and engineering urges in South African development economics

Abstract

South African development economics has recently been plagued by a surfeit of modish notions without either clear meaning or sound theoretical underpinnings. Two currently chic examples much in vogue are the terms appropriate technology and basic needs, neither of which can survive critical scrutiny. Despite the theoretically tenuous basis of such analysis, prescriptive policy proposals abound, often necessitating extensive state intervention. These dirigiste proposals almost always ignore the pervasive phenomenon of government failure. One way of explaining this apparent obsession with theoretically questionable dirigiste policy prescription is in the context of engineering urges which are subject to the synoptic delusion.

Notes

Senior Lecturer, Department of Economics and Economic History, Rhodes University. The author would like to thank Philip Black and Murray Leibbrandt for their helpful comments, and Gail Kotze for her superb secretarial assistance.