Free traders rationalized export-led primary production over industrial diversification with self-contradictory logic

Evidence

Benham stressed overpopulation and a preference for leisure rather than work as intrinsic obstacles to development. Apart from invoking stereotypes typical of Victorian anthropology prevalent in the comparative developmental discourse of nineteenth-century evolutionism (Pieterse 2001, 19), it is not difficult to see Benham developing a systematic counterargument against the emerging industrialization and modernization strategies based on import substitution and selective protectionism. Benham’s paper displays an important contradiction in this regard: Given his emphasis on “free trade” (Benham helped translate Haberler’s book on international trade), it is interesting that Benham regards a local lack of certain inputs in industrial manufacturing and insufficient local markets as important obstacles to industrialization in developing countries (Benham 1951, 8–9), while emphasizing the benefits accruing to developing countries from international exports of traditional (i.e., agricultural and raw materials) production. Why should developing countries not import missing inputs and export manufactured goods to the larger consumer markets? Hong Kong and Singapore obviously were not yet the neoliberal poster children of export-oriented industrialization. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1281

Categorization

• XREF: Contradiction between free-trade rhetoric and colonial-economics prescriptions parallels the law-merchant distinction Milgrom draws between institutions substituting for missing knowledge more generally. — connects to: China prioritized cloud-capital self-sufficiency over short-term trade gains — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 597; Market ideology conceals exploitation by making exchange stand in for production; Imitation-based microstructure can defeat the risk reduction promised by diversification — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 1089
• QUESTION: Why did Benham accept local market and input limitations as binding obstacles for developing countries when free-trade logic should have made them irrelevant? Worth chasing in the primary source.

Broader Connections

• Market ideology conceals exploitation by making exchange stand in for production #corroborates (0.75)
• Imitation-based microstructure can defeat the risk reduction promised by diversification #qualifies (0.72) — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 1089