DEPENDENCY, DEVELOPMENT AND STATE-ACTION IN HONG KONG, SINGAPORE, SOUTH KOREA AND TAIWAN, 1950 TO 1975

Dependency-world system theory has become prominent in the study of economic development. This perspective views the development and under-development of countries and regions not as separate events, but as different features of a single world economy. In the world system perspective different geographic areas perform different functions in a world-wide division of labor. This perspective, however, has been criticized for its inattention to political phenomena and processes. The present project is an attempt to remedy this defect through the study of four cases of successful dependent development.;I use longitudinal descriptive analysis as the methodology for the present project. The period covered in this study is from approximately 1950 to 1975. I rely on archival data as the major resource, utilizing the following sources: (1) each country's statistical yearbooks, (2) the United Nations' National Accounts Statistics Yearbook, and (3) the International Labor Organization's Yearbook of Labor Statistics.;My study focuses on the following aspects: (a) the structural arrangements made by each government to facilitate manufacture-led, labor-intensive export economy; (b) the methods of social, political, and economic control of labor by the state and by capitalists to insure the smooth functioning of the export economy, and (c) the effect of the functioning of the world economy, in general, and of competition among peripheral (underdeveloped) countries, in particular, on the economic development of these countries.;The major findings of the study are as follows: First, the opportunity for the development of these countries has been based on the exchange of their labor-intensive manufactures for the technology-and capital-intensive manufactures produced in core countries. This has happened because labor-intensive production processes have been shifting from core countries to peripheral areas where labor is cheap and abundant and where labor-intensive industry has already been established to some extent.;The project contains two parts. The first part of the project presents a theoretical discussion of the interconnections between aspects of the social formation, state-action, and the world economy. The second part applies these arguments to Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan.;Second, the nature of the relationship between the state and the social formation affects the degree to which successful export oriented economic development can occur. In all four cases the governments were strong and autonomous relative to internal social forces, and they were committed to economic development. Hence, these governments carried out central, aggressive and comprehensive action in pursuit of economic development. The role of state action in the export economy of these countries can be characterized as provisional, integrative and repressive. In addition, domestic capitalists were aggressively entrepreneurial in orientation, and industrial workers remained politically and economically impotent, which provided a socially and politically stable labor force favorable to the capitalist mode of production and to development in these countries.;Third, strong competition in the world economy and the weak position of these countries in world division of labor (a) magnified the importance of state-action and control, and (b) motivated domestic capitalists to seek technological improvements to remain competitive.;In sum, central, aggressive and comprehensive state action, strong competition in the world economy, aggressively entrepreneurial capitalists, and a stable labor force were the major factors contributing to the national development of these countries. A model of dependent development describing the interconnections between aspects of the social formation, state-action and the world economy concludes the study.