American Development Policy: The Case of Internal Improvements

The subject I should like to discuss grows directly out of the theme of the meetings as a whole. They have been concerned with the American West as an Underdeveloped Region, and the title was intended to suggest the analogy between the United States of an earlier period and the so-called underdeveloped nations of the present day. To many it would suggest a contrast in policy. These other nations are now in many cases striving to achieve economic development by national planning and deliberate measures of governmental policy. On the other hand the United States achieved its massive economic development without over-all economic planning, without five-year plans or explicit national targets of input and output, and—it is sometimes believed—without the adoption of policies deliberately intended to promote development.