Word: balogh
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...persuade people to consume less and produce more, writes Balogh, governments must put stern controls on output, imports, wages, prices and the human psyche. If capitalist-style advertising campaigns cannot induce people to accept austerity and sacrifice, then governments may well be advised to try the compulsion of Marx...
Enlarge the Farms. Poor countries go wrong, Balogh argues, by trying to equalize incomes and alleviate immediate needs instead of investing for the future and raising production. He favors land reform, but notes that the time-honored method of cutting up large estates only cuts output. Rather than wasting time trying to increase the productivity of illiterate peasant farmers, the state in the short run should concentrate on inducing large, rich farmers to adopt modern methods...
...longer term, Balogh believes that many underdeveloped nations are so backward and Balkanized that their best hope lies in banding into regional common markets, such as the Latin American Free Trade Association conceived by his ally, Argentina's Raul Prebisch. Richer nations should not only greatly increase their foreign aid, but also channel it through an international organization and budget it on a long-term basis. To accomplish this, the world needs a major reform of its monetary system so that generous nations-notably the U.S.-would not be penalized by balance-of-payments deficits as a result...
Success Overlooked. Balogh's ideas are an. odd mixture of common sense and doctrinaire Pestering. He believes that capitalism is "on the defensive" and distrusts the "North Atlantic Protestant atmosphere" that favors private initiative. "Only totalitarianism and Communist compulsion," he says, "have succeeded in lifting poverty-stricken countries onto the road of progressive improvement." Balogh's tune has hardly changed a note since the early postwar era, when he proclaimed confidently that only the long continuance of direct economic controls could restore Europe's prosperity...
...denies that today's underdeveloped nations will have to use considerable planning and controls if they hope to make progress, but Balogh's case is too extreme, too rigid. Harold Wilson's friend seems to overlook the resounding success of Western Europe's market economies. He also ignores the fact that the Communist world, prodded by such economists as Russia's Evsei Liberman and Czechoslovakia's Ota Sik, is rapidly loosening state controls and adopting Western methods of enterprise. Above all, he fails to mention the recent advances of free enterprise from Chile...