Description:
<jats:p>This article analyses the origins of the methodological nationalism that characterizes the new developmental economics by examining Friedrich List's work. It argues that the international sphere had a primary importance in political economy from the sixteenth century onwards, and that classical political economists elaborated, although contradictorily, elements of a theory of uneven and combined development. List reinforced a vision of development as non-antagonistic, invoking extra-economic factors in order to present late industrialization as beneficial for the nation as a whole. Affirming the centrality of labour, Marx's critique of List offers deep insights into the political economy of development.</jats:p>