`What do you think constitutes economic development? What makes economic development possible? Is there an economic system that is best for the purpose of achieving economic development?`

SEQ CHAPTER \h \r 1 Comparative Economic Development

1 . What do you think constitutes economic development

There are many schools of economic development . Typically , the debate was between the various forms of capitalism and the various forms of socialism . The former can be defined as the more extreme version of Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman , where the state barely exists , and all power and opportunity exists in the private sector . Everything is liberalized movement of labor , trade and domestic investment . The idea here is that economies , if left to the market , are

self regulating and all reach an equilibrium , since business must conform to market demands or be destroyed . On the other hand capitalism has also found in niche in economies such as France or China , where state intervention has been aimed at building up specific sectors of economic life that can compete best within the global market . As a matter of course , this seems to be the trend in global economics . Nearly all the powerful economies functioning in the developing world right now have experienced a great degree of liberalization . This goes for India , China and Mexico , where state controls have either been eliminated or redirected to different roles of guidance rather than command

But this is not enough . The social development school holds that the mere formation of capital in the free market is not sufficient for true development (Speth , 2008 , esp pps 126-147 . Development cannot merely be understood as listing numbers such as GDP growth and low...