WHY MOST LESS-DEVELOPED COUNTRIES ARE INCAPABLE OF AUTO-CENTRIC DEVELOPMENT

We’ll start with how one can identify a less-developed country. Here are some of the characteristics of a less-developed country:

• A country without a lot of industrial activity (low industrial performance)
• High poverty rates
• High rate of population increase (population explosion)
• Low per capita income
• Low gross national product
• Shortage of capital (public and private)
• Low infrastructural development
• High dependency of the populace on the government, as well as high dependence of the government on foreign aid
• High unemployment rates
• Almost (or complete) total reliance on primary goods exports (e.g. agricultural, mined, or other ‘extracted’ products)
• Predominance of agriculture
• Overall low level of productivity and investment (both foreign and domestic)
• Predominance of social and political instability and insecurity
• Low relative development index

Now we have gotten that down, let’s look into auto-centric development.
The word “Auto-centric” can be defined as being centred in or upon the self, or making or regarding oneself as the centre. The aim of auto-centric approach to development is to remedy the neglect of internal dynamics in a nation’s economic enhancement endeavours. In this tactic, the economy focuses more on social needs and welfare and less on external/foreign demands in an attempt to promote internal dynamics (although not completely discarding the pros of external dynamics)
Under this system of economic development, internal demands replace external demands as the major priority for production in the economy. It is almost like a revert back to subsistence echelon of production, so as to raise productive intensity and consumption. This leads to an integration of both modern and traditional sectors of the economy in production for the aim of facilitating economic development and economic self-reliance.
Three major reasons (in my opinion) why this approach to development may not be feasible for most less developed countries (not that there aren't more reason!) are:

• The size of the nation and overall local demand for certain goods. At the start of application of this approach, the inability to efficiently deliver or satisfy local demands will be a challenge, and there will still be need for foreign inputs to kick-start and sustain this endeavour. More land (and machinery) could be required to efficiently deliver, and this may fall negatively on land owners and local farmers. These are mostly because, national subsistence production will not only occur for food purposes (or direct consumption) but also as primary inputs (raw materials) for local industrialization.
• The overall shift from external to domestic demand will affect the major trading nations that relied on the nation’s exports for consumption and industrialization negatively, and this could lead to smuggling and other illegal activities engineered by the citizens themselves and/or some of those other countries in order to continue to gain from the country applying the auto-centric approach to development, disregarding the nation’s focus for economic development.
• Great reduction in foreign exchange flows. This alone may take the nation years to restore its balance under the auto-centric approach.