ABSTRACT
This is an explanation of asymmetric international trade and the circumstances under which this could be a successful alternative to the current orthodoxy of comparative advantage. The underlying assumption is that industrialisation is the key to economic growth and that structural change is required to produce economic development, However, the orthodox policy of free trade leads to status quo and therefore this process could not occur. The alternative requires three radical changes: First, a willingness on the part of advanced high income to accept protectionism put in place by the underdeveloped economies without retaliation and maintaining their economies as open and free from tariff and non-tariff barriers. Second, a continued flow of capital goods from the advanced to the underdeveloped countries, to enable industrialisation to proceed and third, a suspension of the conditionality requirements of the IMF and the World Bank to allow such a radical change of policy without sanction. This would include a recognition that ‘good governance’ is not necessarily a policy that in all cases promotes development and is an aspiration that many advanced countries do not achieve.
