Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Capitalism, the state, and the underlying drivers of human development

Contents:

Author Info

  • Michael Walton

    () (Harvard University and the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi)

Registered author(s):

    Abstract

    What are the underlying drivers of human development? This essay argues that long-term human development, in incomes, social conditions, security and so on, is fundamentally driven by capitalist dynamics and state functioning. The big issue is not state versus market, or growth versus equity, or dynamism versus security. It is the jointly determined functioning of both capitalism and the state. It is in particular a consequence of the extent to which both capitalist and state behaviour is oligarchic, extractive, exploitative and divisive as opposed to being inclusive, innovative, accountable, responsive and effective at mediating distributional conflict. This can be conceptualized, at a point of time, in terms of the nature of the political equilibrium, or, alternatively, the way in which social contracts work. This is a product of the historically shaped interaction between political and economic elites, and between these and various social groups. Specific policy designs of course matter, whether in terms of market-related policy, regulation, designs for social provisioning. But the ways in policy and institutional choices work, and indeed the choices societies make, is intimately linked to the nature and functioning of the underlying social contracts that in turn shape capitalist dynamics and state behaviour.

    Download Info

    If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
    File URL: http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2010/papers/HDRP_2010_09.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    Bibliographic Info

    Paper provided by Human Development Report Office (HDRO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in its series Human Development Research Papers (2009 to present) with number HDRP-2010-09.

    as in new window
    Length: 73 pages
    Date of creation: Jun 2010
    Date of revision:
    Publication status: Published as background research for the 2010 Human Development Report.
    Handle: RePEc:hdr:papers:hdrp-2010-09

    Contact details of provider:
    Postal: 304 E 45th Street, FF-12th Floor, New York, NY, 10017
    Phone: +1-212-906-3661
    Fax: +1-212-906-5161
    Email:
    Web page: http://hdr.undp.org
    More information through EDIRC

    Related research

    Keywords: capitalism; growth; poverty; human development;

    Find related papers by JEL classification:

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    References

    No references listed on IDEAS
    You can help add them by filling out this form.

    Citations

    Lists

    This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hdr:papers:hdrp-2010-09

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (HDRO/UNDP).

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

    If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.