Development and the revival of political economy

Ha-Joon Chang argues that there has been a switch in development thinking from a “productionist” view, in which development is conceptualized in terms of the productive structures of the economy, to “neoliberal” and “humanistic” views of development, where in the humanistic view development is studied in terms of its impact on human well-being. Chang calls for a new developmentalism that integrates both the productionist and the humanistic view, within an institutionalist approach. Here I address the prospects for a synthesis between productionist and humanistic views drawing on the idea of a revival of political economy developed at Cambridge, UK, especially on the contributions of Joan Robinson, Piero Sraffa, and others. More specifically, I argue that Celso Furtado's suggestion of applying the theoretical framework that underpins this revival of political economy to the study of development can help achieving a fruitful synthesis between productionist and humanistic approaches to development, while also drawing on elements from post Keynesianism and original institutionalism.