6. The Culminating Effort: Asian Drama

When Gunnar Myrdal left Geneva in 1958, he embarked on his largest study ever, which was to occupy him for a full decade: his investigation of the causes of poverty in South Asia, notably India. This chapter tells the story of Asian Drama and The Challenge of World Poverty, where the latter presents the policy conclusions of the former work. Asian Drama represents the culmination of Gunnar Myrdal’s life-long methodological endeavor. There, as heterodox and institutional as ever, he pulls together all the threads that he had been spinning since the 1920s. Explicit value premises—‘modernization ideals’—loom large. Mainstream development economics is subjected to devastating criticism, the importance of industrialization is played down and the role of labor utilization in agriculture is brought to the forefront, as is education, health and population aspects. Myrdal also remains true to his social engineering ideal. The importance of planning is stressed throughout and the problem of the ‘soft’ character of the South Indian state is analyzed at length.