Convergence Hypothesis

Summary of Convergence Hypothesis

A view held by certain economic and political thinkers that the world can be divided into three economic camps— the industrialized, capitalist world; the communist nations; and the so-called Third World developing nations—and that the capitalists and communists are losing their ideological identities, each group adopting some of the characteristics of the other (i.e., the Western nations are becoming more “socialist”through enhanced social welfare programs and government regulation of commerce, while the communist are becoming “capitalist,”as manifested by the use of productivity inducements for workers). The hypothesis holds that the Third World is drawing parallels with both camps, with the result that the developing nations are becoming an ideological synthesis, or admixture, of the capitalist/specialist models.

(Main Author: William J. Miller)