06-03-2023, 09:00 PM
Walt Rostow's scheme is somewhat different.
In the beginning, there were the laborers - most of whom were agricultural, but if a country is fortunate enough to have natural resources, there could be extractors (miners) as well. Rostow called this a "traditional society" - Stage 1 of his five stages of economic growth.
At some point, a country might start to engage in "secondary" economic activity - primarily manufacturing, enabling the country to export manufactured goods. This is Rostow's Stage 2, or "preconditions for takeoff."
Stage 3, should a country get that far, is the "takeoff" itself, when "tertiary" economic activity; i.e., services, which could range from anything like McDonald's etc. to something resembling modern professions like law and medicine, join the mix of available jobs.
After that come Stages 4 and 5, where "quaternary" economic activity, generally involving things like transportation, communication, and information technology, and highly sophisticated "quinary" economic activity, respectively, come upon the scene.
No purely laissez-faire country has ever advanced beyond Stage 3.
In the beginning, there were the laborers - most of whom were agricultural, but if a country is fortunate enough to have natural resources, there could be extractors (miners) as well. Rostow called this a "traditional society" - Stage 1 of his five stages of economic growth.
At some point, a country might start to engage in "secondary" economic activity - primarily manufacturing, enabling the country to export manufactured goods. This is Rostow's Stage 2, or "preconditions for takeoff."
Stage 3, should a country get that far, is the "takeoff" itself, when "tertiary" economic activity; i.e., services, which could range from anything like McDonald's etc. to something resembling modern professions like law and medicine, join the mix of available jobs.
After that come Stages 4 and 5, where "quaternary" economic activity, generally involving things like transportation, communication, and information technology, and highly sophisticated "quinary" economic activity, respectively, come upon the scene.
No purely laissez-faire country has ever advanced beyond Stage 3.
"These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation" - Justice David Brewer, Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, 1892