The theory is based on the assumption that western countries are wealthier and more powerful, thus became the basis of modernization. These countries are said to be able to undergo the initial stages of underdevelopment and other countries are modeling themselves after the western world in capitalism and democracy. .
Walt Rostow postulated a five stage model of development that will be able to apply to all the countries. This model is concerned with the idea that a country is able to develop economically by focusing on the resources that are in short supply in order to expand beyond local industries to reach global market and finance the country's further development to bring about economic growth.
Rostow's Stages of Economic Growth theory is based on the assumption that produced a five step stages for development namely: traditional society, preconditions to take-off, take off, drive to maturity, and age of high mass consumption.
2. Description of Proponents.
Walt Whitman Rostow was a United States economist, a government official, and a political theorist. Being widely known as a loyal anti-communist, he shaped US foreign policy in Southeast Asia. He also believes in the efficacy of capitalism and is known to strongly supporting US involvement in the Vietnam War.
Rostow became famous when he published "The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto," in 1960, which proposed the Rostovian take-off model of economic growth, one of the major historical models of economic growth, which argues that economic modernization occurs in five basic stages of varying length: traditional society, preconditions for take-off, take-off, drive to maturity, and high mass consumption. This became one of the important concepts in the theory of modernization in social evolutionism. The book was later criticized when it was proven unable to be applied in places like Latin America and Africa.