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El atraso de las naciones: los retros al desarollo en las teorias de Evgeny Preobrazhensky y Raul Prebisch
This article surveys the views on economic development sustained by two protagonists of developmental policy in the U.S.S.R. and Latin America: the Russian economist Evgeny Preobrazhensky (1886 – 1937) and the Argentine economist Raúl Prebisch (1901 – 1986). Although both thinkers started from different analytical premises, and elaborated their theories in diverse social and political backgrounds, there is a basic commonality between the two being that the examination of the nature and causes of economic backwardness came to be the mainstay in the stepping up of their own economic policies to trigger a developmental process. Each, in their own way, advanced the idea that backwardness is not a necessary first step of economic development, to be surpassed only by economic policies which encourage thriftiness and entrepreneurship, and avoid excessive interference of the state into business. On the other hand, for them, backwardness is a result of the dependence of a capital-poor economy on the world economic system. Their studies of backwardness highlighted not only economic, but also political and social obstacles, which the peripheral countries must face in their strategies towards sustainable development.