Reddit reviews Governing the Market: Economic Theory and the Role of Government in East Asian Industrialization

The comment I see is invoking the failure of dirigisme in Brazil. There is a point to be made about the shortcomings of dependency theory as formulated by Cardoso & Faletto and Gunder-Frank... to the extent that Import Substitution Industrialization did not (on its own) move Southern-Cone countries up the international value production chain. It should be noted that Wallerstein's formulation of world systems analysis and contributions to development theory and macrosociology go far beyond that of unequal trade. With regard to the question of unequal trade and comparative advantage one ought to go right back to Marx' Capital and Smith's Wealth of Nations: the terms of trade in the market are completely commensurate - there is no such thing as exploitation or unequal exchange at the point of exchange. This is not Wallerstein's argument. Wallerstein performs an analysis of the political economy of production across value chains. His argument is that the lower on the value chain a country is located, the less the labor of its workers is valued, which is born out in the comparison of wages of skilled vs. unskilled labor. This, in turn, determines the relative benefit a country will reap in dealings with others. With regard to the effectiveness of this sort of analysis as applied to economic development, consider the works of Robert Wade and Alice Amsden. They argue that state policies aimed at moving a country's economic base up the international value chain have been crucial in the successes of East Asian Economies. Wade and Amsden are not specifically world systems theorists, but their work helps to reinforce some assumptions in the approach. As for general arguments against World Systems Analysis, you would have to be more specific, as it is a holistic approach to social science.

Integrald's list is awesome. I would also add-

Governing the Market by Robert Wade

And, as someone in the legal field myself, I also must throw in a plug for The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander - I think understanding the criminal justice system can do a lot to help illuminate some of the dynamics of U.S. inner city poverty. Also, the Wire.