New Developmentalism and the Origins of Methodological Nationalism

This article analyses the origins of the methodological nationalism that characterizes the new developmental economics by examining Friedrich List's work. It argues that the international sphere had a primary importance in political economy from the sixteenth century onwards, and that classical political economists elaborated, although contradictorily, elements of a theory of uneven and combined development. List reinforced a vision of development as non-antagonistic, invoking extra-economic factors in order to present late industrialization as beneficial for the nation as a whole. Affirming the centrality of labour, Marx's critique of List offers deep insights into the political economy of development.