This paper examines differences and similarities in the approach to economic development of the Plantation School of Caribbean economists and of W.A. Lewis by locating them within their respective theoretical frameworks. By tracing the evolution of Lewis’s thinking in three stages from Caribbean industrialisation to the dual economy and then to trade and development, it identified a change in emphasis in Lewis’s later work that brought him closer to ‘dependency’ explanations of underdevelopment, of which the Plantation School was an expression. It draws attention Lewis’s own perspective on the dependency thesis and the related thesis that imperialism is the cause underdevelopment. The paper goes on to review the Plantation School’s critiques of Lewis’s industrialisation model for the Caribbean and its proposals for an alternative theoretical approach in the form of models of Plantation Economy, and compares this to Lewis’s analytical framework to show the differences and similarities. The final section discusses the contemporary relevance of the comparison of the approaches of Lewis and the Plantation School.

Download