So what's the moral? We've seen how the insistence on models that meet the standards of rigor in mainstream economics can lead to neglect of clearly … - Paul Krugman

From the point of view of a modern economist, the most striking feature of the works of high is their adherence to a discursive, nonmathematical style. Economics has, of course, become vastly more mathematical over time. Nonetheless, development economics was archaic in style even for its own time. Of the four most famous high development works, Rosenstein-Rodan's was approximately contemporary with Samuelson's formulation of the Heckscher–Ohlin model, while Lewis, Myrdal, and Hirschman were all roughly contemporary with Solow's initial statement of growth theory.
This lack of formality was not because development economists were peculiarly mathematically incapable. Hirschman made a significant contribution to the formal theory of in the 1940s, while Fleming helped create the still influential of s. Moreover, the development field itself was at the same time generating mathematical planning models—first Harrod–Domar type growth models, then linear programming approaches that were actually quite technically advanced for their time.
So why didn't high development theory get expressed in formal models? Almost certainly for one basic reason: the difficulty of reconciling economies of scale with a competitive market structure.

The serious lesson of the antics in Argentina, then, is that the big issues of --fixed vs. flexible exchange rates, whether countries should have independent currencies at all--are still wide open. It's an eternal controversy, and not even the pope can resolve it.

For the first time since 1917, then, we live in a world in which property rights and free markets are viewed as fundamental principles, not grudging expedients; where the unpleasant aspects of a market system—inequality, unemployment, injustice—are accepted as facts of life. As in the Victorian era, capitalism is secure not only because of its successes—which, as we will see in a moment, have been very real—but because nobody has a plausible alternative.
This situation will not last forever. Surely there will be other ideologies, other dreams; and they will emerge sooner rather than later if the current economic crisis persists and deepens. But for now capitalism rules the world unchallenged.