8/18/2019 Walt Rostow's Political Modernization Theory

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DIZON, KURT ZEUS L.February 5, 2016

MA POLITICAL SCI 1 P!S"# 501$

R%&'(% S&a)e * E"+#" -r'&

Rostow’s stage of economic growth is one of the best and inuential modelsto cite and assess development. In the Philippine context for example, we arehaving a diculty in transitioning from the stage of !a"e#o$% to &rive to 'aturity%.(e already launch our country to ta"e o$ and reach for economic growth anddevelopment. )owever instead of moving forward to the destination, we are stuc"

 *ust li"e a roc"et launch to moon, we stop in space because of some roc"etproblems and needed for repair. In our setting we always have these bac"logs orproblems that are why we are delaying our development instead of having aconstant movement in the stage of economic growth. +uch bac"logs or problemsmay be caused by our inecient political and government leaders and corruption in

terms of decision ma"ing and bribery.)owever Rostow’s stage of economic growth is somehow bias because of his

assumption that moderniation was characteried by the western world which is themodel country for his last stage which is the -ge of )igh 'ass onsumption%. -lsoif we loo" into the account of the last stage, it seems that the system of amodernied state is capitalism, that development is highly characteried by massproduction and economic activity. If we loo" into the -ge of )igh 'ass onsumption,he emphasie the role of capitalism and increase in social welfare system.apitalism indeed had corrective elements from its previous stage which isfeudalism and also developed important institutions such as popular self#governments and also capitalism brought the age of science if we loo" into theindustrial revolution / however capitalism had within it certain evils. If we loo" into'arx’s idea, capitalism itself bought many improvements to man"ind but there issomething better than what capitalism proposes, where there is still ine0uality orrather in*ustices regarding the class system in which I thin" capitalism and themotive for greater social welfare system *ust cannot ride together. Rostow doesn’tinclude communist states in his stage of economic growth. If we could comparecommunist and socialist countries against capitalistic countries, the left orientedstates highly emphasies and a great in social welfare while capitalistic countrieshave large economic activities and have greater number of production. If you loo"into capitalistic states, indeed there are a lot of millionaires however there is a greatgap between the social classes. If we loo" into socialist states such as in the+candinavian countries, the composition of the population is nearly e0ual to themiddle classes however their social welfare system can be bragged as one of thebest in the world. uba for an example, their healthcare system and medicalservices beats and shames the 1nited +tates which some 0uotes 1nited +tates asthe role model of moderniation and development but their healthcare was beatenby uba which is a communist state. Rostow’s model is a good model although isnotion of capitalism and western states as a role model of moderniation, howeverthe model only sides with capitalism as the only path to moderniation and he notrecognie that moderniation can be achieved in di$erent ways in di$erent types of economies.