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What is the nature and causes of the wealth of nations? It was the question that gave rise to economic science in the eighteenth century, and that inaugurated a school of economic thought known as “the classics”, whose most well-known representative, to be considered precisely the father of the economy, was Adam Smith . The answer given by these thinkers was that the source of wealth and engine of economic growth of nations, was determined by the accumulation of resources (land, labor and capital) by nature scarce, by population growth (long term limited by the own availability of resources), as well as by the productive specialization as strategy of optimization in the use of the same ones and of the market like allocating mechanism of the resources in the economy .Under these premises, it was evident that in the long term, once the resources of society were fully utilized, what was called “the steady state” would be reached, that is, a moment in time from which it would be impossible to continue growing . Under this framework of analysis it is understandable the relevance given by the classics to international trade, because it constitutes an escape valve to the “steady state” by making available unused resources (for example land for cultivation) and markets for surpluses productive .Basically, they dominate in them the idea that growth has limits, due to the avai-lability of resources, by nature, finite . Three aspects stand out in the notion of growth elaborated by this school of economic thought:• Accepting that growth depended fundamentally on available resources, which are scarce by nature .• Consequently, they recognized that growth necessarily had limits .• The importance accorded to the accumulation of capital and the long-term eco-nomic dynamics .In a second phase, in the evolution of the notion of growth, we try to break with the idea that growth has limits, by adding, as a determinant of it, to technological pro-gress . From the work carried out by Solow (1956) since the mid-twentieth century, it is accepted that the productive application of science and technology allow breaking the “straitjacket” that means the limitation of productive factors, which lead to the stationary state . Solow concludes that economic growth is something more than the sum of the marginal contributions of productive factors to find what was later called in the economic literature, the “residue of Solow .” That is, an added value that was not explained by the quantitative contribution of the productive factors at stake and that he credited to the technological progress applied to the productive process .From this moment it was thought that technological progress would break with any barrier (natural or technical) that would obstruct the growth of the economy, ma-king this a process of unlimited expansion . The growth would be based on three fundamental elements:1 . The availability of physical capital2 . The expansion of the productive capacities of man and,3 . The evolution of science and technology for productive purposes .Since then, he has dominated in economic theory and politics the belief that by putting all social efforts and capabilities in pursuit of growth, in the long term, the economic expansion that this would bring, would reduce poverty by increasing employment and real income the workers and their families . However, reality has refuted, again and again, this postulate of conventional economic theory . |
