Whatever their ideological differences, the advocates of the neocolonial-dependence, false-paradigm, and
dualism models reject the exclusive emphasis on traditional Western economic theories designed to accelerate
the growth of GNP as the principal index of development. They question the validity of Lewis type two-sector
models of modernization and industrialization in light of their questionable assumptions and recent Third World
history. They further reject the claims made by Chenery and others that there exist well-defined empirical
patterns of development that should be pursued by most poor countries on the periphery of the world economy.
Instead, dependence, false-paradigm, and dualism theorists place more emphasis on international power
imbalances and on needed fundamental economic, political, and institutional reforms, both domestic and
worldwide. In extreme cases, they call for the outright expropriation of privately owned assets in the expectation
that public asset ownership and control will be a more effective means to help eradicate absolute poverty,
provide expanded employment opportunities, lessen income inequalities, and raise the levels of living (including
health, education, and cultural enrichment) of the masses. Although a few radical neo-Marxists would even go so
far as to say that economic growth and structural change do not matter, the majority of thoughtful observers
recognize that the most effective way to deal with these diverse social problems is to accelerate the pace of
economic growth through domestic and international reforms accompanied by a judicious mixture of both public
and private economic activity.
However, while this international dependence revolution in development theory was capturing the imagination
of many Western and Third World scholars during the 1970s, a neoclassical free-market counterrevolution was
beginning to