Economic Development in Africa: Aims and Possibilities

Much that has recently been said and written with respect to economic development, particularly in a semi-popular vein, is con nected with Rostow’s Stages of Economic Growth.1 It is not our intention to start another ‘Methodenstreit’ when we say Rostow’s main weakness is in his method. In a gathering of professional economists it certainly need not be repeated that historical observa tion is necessary to bring together facts and describe situations as a starting-point for analysis, but that the inductive method, consisting of generalization of common elements in observed situations, does not necessarily lead to an effective explanation of events.