Interest groups and inflation in Indonesia since 1950. Some problems of historical methodology

Abstract

Any historian, political scientist or economist who sets out to analyse the course of economic developments in Indonesia since she achieved her independence quickly runs up against some puzzling problems of interpretation. Inflation has been almost endemic and damaging not only to the economy in general, but in particular to the main productive sectors where some concentration of capital has taken place. (This does not mean that the poor have not suffered heavily, too, but that is another and more complex question). Yet when one tries to explain why the groups most seriously hurt by it have not been able to exert greater political influence towards preventing inflation than they have, the answers lead into some odd paradoxes.