Advantage of Backwardness

Full Title or Meme

The American economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen developed the concept of the "advantage of backwardness" in his essay Imperial Germany and the Industrial Revolution, published in 1915.

In Modern Times

• Also known as; The backward advantage, which implies that a still-developing country can take advantage of their low wages to gain an advantage in manufacturing. This was the position of the Southern States in the United States after the Civil War.
• Thorstein Veblen described Germany's advantage in moving from a feudal society to an industrial society has have a competitive advantage due to skipping the intermediate steps taken by England since Elizabeth I relaxed some strictures that enable the growth of guilds and other structures that impeded England but were absent in Germany.