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This article holds that the relationship between economic and political progress is in no way easy, direct and "functional." The usual focuses postulate three possible nexuses between both variables: concomitance (both go hand in hand), mutual exclusion (one must be sacrificed on behalf of the other) and sequence over time (first one must be achieved and then the other). Hirschman argues that the nexus between both domains, economic and political, is intermittent in nature: "a connection of couplings and uncouplings, of alternation between interdependence and autonomy. And specially when the initial cause of their relationship moves from the economic ambit to the political ambit, political institutionality can later acquire "its own life," the author says, like what occurred in Spain after the death of Franco and in Germany during the Third Reich.
The author further says that there are connections (between the political and the economic) in particular cases: "intricate and often unrepeatable" connections "[...] that seem rather more like tricks that history keeps up its sleeve." Consequently, Hirschman suggests, perhaps the best way to progress in this difficult topic is by beginning to examine the repertoire of those stratagems.