The purpose of this paper is to criticize the debate about the new hegemonic view of the development process as proposed by the World Bank. First, it presents the theoretical insufficiency of the debate centered upon the concept of market failures, pointing that the neoclassical approach dominates its terms. Second, some theoretical elements of an alternative neo-Schumpeterian view are presented which breaks radically with the neoclassical foundations, embodying history, institutions and technological change in the analysis of the development process, independently of either optimum or market failures concepts.