The socialist era in Myanmar, though usually identified with the rule of the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP), had roots that predated the 1974 Constitution which formally instituted one-party rule under the ideological ambit of the Burmese Way to Socialism. One could say that it began with the rise of young nationalist thakin politicians in colonial Myanmar (see Chapter 2). Consequently, the socialist vision of successive Myanmar political leadership had influenced the strategies and policies for economic development and industrialization since independence, culminating in the BSPP-planned socialist economy with its twenty-year long-term plan that promised to transform Myanmar into a modern industrialized state through growth with equity. This failed to materialize as the state faltered and stumbled near the three-quarters mark of its self-professed journey. It was a story of developmental failure, brought about by self-imposed resource constraints and state over-reach, compounded by the pathology of one-party authoritarian system, that ended the socialist era in 1988.

DEVELOPMENTAL FAILURE

Despite ambiguities in defining “economic development” as such (see Chapter 1), most would agree that economic growth is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for developmental success. Hence, following Kuznet's concept of a general economic transformation identified as “modern economic growth”, Syrquin's interpretation of “long-term economic growth” as “intrinsically a process of [economic] change” serves a useful conceptual anchor in assessing Myanmar's achievement after four decades of state intervention. According to Syrquin, long-term economic growth entails a “rise in [national] income” associated with “changes in composition of demand, international trade and factor use, all of which interact with the pattern of productivity growth, availability of natural resources and government policies” to “determine the pace and nature of industrial growth”. Such changes may be reflected in the output and employment structures of the economy over the period concerned.