IS THERE AN URBAN BIAS? CRITIQUE OF MICHAEL LIPTON'S: WHY POOR PEOPLE STAY POOR

In his diagnosis Lipton occupies an unusual position. He is critical both of the Left and of the Right, of the classicists as well as of the Marxists. He is strongly critical of inequality though he maintains that growth is necessary for development, and development for the abolition of inequality. The struggle is not between the rich and the poor, but between the urban and the rural sectors. The former exploits the latter so that the explanation of poverty (mostly in the rural areas) is urban exploitation in a variety of subtle ways. This exploitation and its consequences — a product of a state of mind — is characterized as “urban bias”, which is the key phrase of the subtitle (“Urban Bias in World Development”).