ABSTRACT
This discussion continues the critique of empirical studies of dependency. Erich Weede and Horst Tiefenbach are concerned with various explanations of the internal gap between rich and poor. Rather than confining themselves to a test of dependency theory alone, they examine five separate explanations of internal income inequality. Using data from previous investigations, they conclude that Kuznets’s inverted U-curve explanation is the most convincing; that is, income inequality is low among the poorest nations, rises among the industrializing nations, and then declines at higher levels of development. Support is also found for the egalitarian influence of a high military participation ratio (i.e., high proportion of military to the population), of communist rule, and of democracy, although the impact of each of these factors was not uniformly strong. Tests performed on three separate versions of dependency theory (including the approaches taken by Rubinson and Bornschier in previous chapters) are not supported by the data according to Weede and Tiefenbach. This article sparked an intense debate between its authors and Bornschier; the interested reader should consult the various comments and replies found in the journal from which this chapter was drawn.
