Works and Oppinions of Sir William Arthur Lewis Research Paper

Works and Oppinions of Sir William Arthur Lewis - Research Paper Example W. Arthur Lewis’ most famous input to development economics was his revolutionary work on the movement of labor from a conventional to a contemporary industrial region in circumstances of limitless supplies of labor. His famous piece of writing, â€Å"Development with Unlimited Supplies of Labour†, written in 1954, contributed to the foundation of development economics as a specific area of study. It concentrated on the methods of shifting excess labor from conventional movement to a contemporary industrial region in environment of unrestricted supply of labor. In his model, earnings in the contemporary industrialist sector are not verified by the output of labor, ‘but by its opportunity cost’2. A conventional non-industrialist operational atmosphere - variously included peasants, artisanal manufacturers as well as domestic servants - increased by residents demands in addition to the entry of females into the labor force, gives the industrial zone with limi tless supplies of labor, on a salary fairly over the survival point. As one observes development in the segment, employment increases and share of earnings in national income increases as well3. Ultimately, as excess labor is drained, the income rate increases. At this time, the economy traverses the borderline, from a dual to a single incorporated labor market, and actual earnings increases with growing output, in reference to conventional expansion models. Lewis’ model gives an idea about lesser incomes and scarcity in a labor surplus economy will carry on so long as the opportunity cost of labor to the industrial sector continues to stay low. It as well served as an argument for government-directed industrialization plans during the years 1950s and 1960s, something Lewis disagreed all the way through his involvement with the United Nations. Lewis pressed on the case for industrialization by indicating the comparative benefit of labor surplus nations in industrialized activ ity. â€Å"Presented in The Industrial Development of the Caribbean in the year 1951, his argument was based on the success of Operation Bootstrap in Puerto Rico, where he had advocated the production of manufactured goods for domestic, regional and metropolitan markets. It was a radical position at a time when the agrarian economies of the West Indies had been historically structured to provide agricultural and other primary commodities to the colonial powers†4. The blow of the ‘Great Depression’ on the West Indies was a determining power on Arthur Lewis. Lewis did not intend to be a doctor or a public prosecutor - the two conservative ways to increasing social mobility. He noticed that he would like to be an engineer, â€Å"but neither the colonial government nor the sugar plantations would hire a black engineer†5. At 18 years of age, he takes admission at the London School of Economics (LSE) to get a Bachelor of Commerce degree. There, he comes across e conomics, a subject matter he noted, neither he nor any person in St. Lucia had ever heard of previously; it appeared, though, to be homework for employment in trade or public management. London, during 1930s and 1940s, was the academic centre of anti-colonial efforts as well as the assembly ground of individuals, afterwards many of whom would turn out to be potential leaders of the recently autonomous states of Africa and Asia. Within London, meeting associates ‘anti-imperialists from all over the world’, started a organized study of the British colonial realm in addition to its. Lewis dealt with the crisis of