The rise of China as an economic power in the light of classics of economic development

Abstract

The article presented here is part of the debate on economic development based on classic texts referring to the 1950s and 1960s (Lewis, Nurkse and Rostow, 2010; Rosenstein-Rodan, 1957 and Hirschman, 1986) and aims to verify whether there is a repercussion between what these authors theorized and the Chinese economic development of the Mao Zedong era. Using bibliographical research, it was concluded that, under certain aspects, one can respond positively to that concern, although, in the same way, one can make deductions about failures in what they thought, like the statement made by Ragnar Nurkse that poverty breeds poverty and makes economic development unfeasible. The experience of Maoist China denies this.