The Stages of Economic Growth

Economist W.W. Rostow in 1959 had a vast amount of information and intelligence in the history of the economy. Putting his intelligence and information together he wrote The Stages of Economic Growth, a small article in a much larger book, The Economic History Review. In this particular article Rostow feels that there are different stages in economic growth that countries follow: the traditional society, the preconditions for take off, the take off, and the age of mass consumption. Once countries pass these five different stages they will be at a good economic level. Rostow believes that this article will bring some understanding of the "phenomena of growth" brought about by consumers, goods, and any other x factor.

The first stage is the Traditional Society or a pre-Newtonian society. This society lacks the technology and innovations of a science that has not yet come full circle in this society. However, this society has managed to evolve and progress through the limited production. Due to the society being limited due to their lack of innovative technology they relied heavily on agriculture. Since agriculture was their main source of income during time of war, plague, or another x factor caused the economy to fluctuate. With agriculture comes a lot of down time or time when there is no harvest creating an important social aspect to this society. Time that is not spend on the land is spent socializing and on keeping the hierarchy in place. This hierarchy gave political and social power to the landowners who were able to make the most money because of the agriculture. Before the society can break off from this agriculture based economy there has to be an in between and that stage is called the Preconditions for Take-Off.

The second stage, Preconditions for Take-Off are the steps that are necessary to make it to the third stage. There are two characteristics for this stage that began after the Medieval Times. The first characteristic is the evolution of modern science and a scientific attitude. Scientific innovations allowed the people to get away from simple agriculture. The mind frame of these scientists also evolved socially. The hierarchy is seen less and less and education and entrepreneurship is on the rise. The second characteristic