My strategy in research is to attempt to say or write something audacious enough to elicit intelligent criticism, to reflect at length on that criticism, and then to maintain the self-confidence needed unreservedly to make every amendment, abandonment, or extension that could be appropriate. Even if I believe a criticism is mistaken, I strive (sometimes unsuccessfully) to take that as evidence that I need to improve my exposition. While working on this book I have accordingly obtained criticisms from hundreds of people—experts in almost every pertinent specialization, in most parts of the world, and from almost every ideological shading. As a result, a large part of any merit this book may have is due to my critics.
I am indebted to each and every critic, but the number is so very great that it is not feasible to list them all. This is not only because of the excessive number of pages such a listing would require. I was using the criticism-seeking strategy even before I knew I would be writing a book along these lines, and I have been using it for so many years on this book alone that I have undoubtedly forgotten some of those who helped. In some cases the critics were questioners in large audiences, whose names I never knew. In selecting for special mention some critics whose help is recent or for other reasons especially memorable, I am no doubt doing an unjustice to others, and even to some whose help was quite valuable. I am deeply sorry for this and hope that those I have accidentally slighted will forgive me.
Those who provided crucial help and encouragement in the earlier and more primitive stages of this effort needed special patience, and I am especially thankful for that. John Flemming, coeditor of the Economic Journal, was an extraordinarily generous and penetrating early critic, and I am sorry that I have never sent him the ready-to-publish article that I led him to expect. Robert Solow was another invaluable source of early encouragement and help, as were Moses Abramovitz, Samuel Brittan, Sir Alec Cairncross, Walter Eltis, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Daniel Newlon, and Thomas Wilson. Those who have done or are doing complementary or collaborative work have also been particularly helpful, most notably Kwang Choi, Jean-Frangois Hennart, Gudmund Hernes, Dennis Mueller, and Peter Murrell.
In 1978 Robin Mariis proposed and chaired a conference to assess and criticize a paper I had written on the matters discussed particularly in chapter 4 of this book. He invited experts from various countries and specialties to this conference, some of whom wrote extended comments that are published in Dennis Mueller’s Political Economy of Growth. I am deeply thankful to Robin Mariis for promoting this conference, to Dennis Mueller for editing and contributing to the book that grew out of it, to the National Science Foundation for providing the principal funding for it, and to the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, and the Ministry of Education of Japan for financing some of the travel to it. Finally, each of those who attended the conference or contributed papers has helped me more than he or she probably realizes. The mere listing of names and affiliations that follows does not do them justice:
Moses Abramovitz (Stanford U.), J. C. Asselain (U. de Bordeaux I), Ragnar Bentzel (Uppsala U.), James Blackman (National Science Foundation), Samuel Bowles (U. of Massachusetts), Myles G. Boylan (National Science Foundation), Camilo Dagum (Ottawa U.), James Dean (Simon Fraser U. and Columbia U.), Stephen J. DeCanio (U. of California, Santa Barbara), Edward Denison (U.S. Dept. of Commerce), Raymond Courbis (U. of Paris), John Eatwell (Trinity, Cambridge), Walter Eltis (Exeter, Oxford), Francesco Forte (U. of Torino), Raymond Goldsmith (Yale U.), Jean-Frangois Hennart (Florida International U.), Gudmund Hernes (U. of Bergen), Sir John Hicks (All Souls, Oxford), Ursula (Lady) Hicks (Linacre, Oxford), Helen Hughes (World Bank), Charles Hulton (Urban Institute), Serge-Christophe Kolm (CEPREMAP, Paris), Hans-Juergen Krupp (U. of Frankfurt), Franz Lehner (Ruhr U. Bochum), Harvey Leibenstein (Harvard U.), Edward J. Lincoln (Johns Hopkins U.), Edmond Malinvaud (Inst. National de la Statistique, Paris), R. C. O. Matthews (Clare, Cambridge), Christian Morrisson (Ecole Nórmale Superieure), Daniel H. Newlon (National Science Foundation), Yusuke Onitsuka (Osaka U.), Sam Peltzman (U. of Chicago), Richard Portes (Birkbeck, London), Frederic L. Pryor (Swarthmore College), Walter Salant (Brookings Institution), Hans Soderstrom (U. of Stockholm), Ingeniar Stahl (U. of Lund), Carl Christian von Weizsacker (U. of Bonn), Hans Willgerodt (U. of Cologne), Wolfgang Zapf (U. of Mannheim).
I am similarly indebted to Roger Benjamin for bringing early drafts of part of this work to the attention of critics in political science, to Marian Ash, Myles Boylan, Jan de Vries, Stanley Engerman, I. M. D. Little, R. C. O. Matthews, and Edmund Phelps for exceptionally generous help, to Nuffield College, Oxford, and especially to Brian Barry for hospitality and comment when I had some of my early thoughts on this, to the staff of Resources for the Future and especially Emery Castle and Joy Dunkerley for patient encouragement, and to the participants in the pleasant seminars organized by the Lehrman Institute around early drafts of this book, including particularly Donald Dewey and Kelvin Lancaster. My wife, Alison G. Olson, has as a professional historian a special appreciation of the importance of prose that is whenever humanly possible free of specialized technical language, and I am indebted to her for invaluable instruction in the art of writing clearly, as well as for many other things. My brothers, Allan and Gaylord, have also helped in many ways.
My colleagues at the Department of Economics at the University of Maryland have been exceptionally generous and stimulating. I must emphasize Martin J. Bailey’s patience with the delays in our collaborative work occasioned by my preoccupation with this book, Christopher Clague’s years of helpful and penetrating comments on this and my other writing, and Charles Brown’s and Paul Meyer’s criticisms of many early drafts. Adele Krokes’s help also deserves special emphasis, not only because of her incredibly patient typing and word processing, but even more because of the efficient way she helps to organize my hectic professional life. I am also thankful to those who have provided research assistance over the years I have worked on this book, especially Terence Alexander, Kwang Choi, Brian Cushing, Cyril Kearl, Douglas Kinney, Natalie McPherson, James Stafford, Fran Sussman, and Howell Zee.
Finally, there are the many kind people who have read and criticized the last two drafts. I am grateful not only to many of those named earlier, but also to Alan Blinder, Roger Boner, Barry Bosworth, Shannon Brown, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Martha Derthick, Dudley Dillard, Bruce Dunson, James Galbraith, John Goldethorpe, Donald Gordon, Daniel Hausman, Russell Hardin, Michael Hechter, Gail Huh, Peter Katzenstein, Donald Keesing, Robert Knight, Robert Mackay, Cynthia Taft Morris, Douglas North, Joe Oppenheimer, Clarence Stone, Maura Shaw Tantillo, Charles Taquey, Neil Wallace, Oliver Williamson, and Horst Zimmermann.
Unfortunately, there has not been time enough to do justice to many of the more recent comments. I fear I have perhaps also failed to comprehend fully some of the criticisms, and despite my general strategy I have stubbornly resisted a few, including one or two that were most severe. Thus the faults that remain in this study—and I fear, partly because of its scope, that there may be a great many—are entirely my responsibility.