Iwrite to correct certain major errors of analysis and of emphasis in the review of H. Myint’s book with the above title that appeared over my name in nlr 31. These errors result in part from the fact that the review was so heavily edited as to amount almost to a complete re-write; but they also arise from my own failure to appreciate Myint’s general purpose and framework of reference. This should have been clear to me had I recalled Myint’s very valuable article in Oxford Economic Papers of June 1954. My attention has been drawn to these errors by R. H. Green and G. B. Kay, recently of the Economics Department of the University of Ghana. I am most grateful to them and hope that they will contribute a full statement of their views in a future issue of nlr. In the meantime the following errors require correction.
First, and foremost, I was quite manifestly wrong in not recognizing the importance of structural analysis in Myint’s work and in associating him with the school of Bauer, which Dudley Seers was attacking in his article on ‘The Limitation of the Special Case’ (Oxford University Institute of Economics and Statistics Bulletin, May 1963). At the same time, Myint’s disenchantment with grandiose economic plans and prestige projects leads him to speak of ‘subjective discontent concerning “foreign economic domination” and “colonial exploitation”’ (pp. 27–8: his quotation marks; my emphasis) and of ‘economic development plans creating dislocation, discomfort and deprivation for the people, without producing quick benefits’ (p. 20). The result is to create in the reader a sense of despair at the possibility of structural change.