Assessing Indonesia's economic progress over more than a century is fraught with pitfalls. There have been both remarkable achievements and major disappointments. Different analysts have tended to give greater weight to either the achievements or the failures with the result that their work is often criticised as being either too optimistic or too pessimistic. This study has tried to avoid both extremes, but might at times have appeared rather inconclusive. So it might be useful to summarise the progress which has undoubtedly occurred while drawing attention to the problems which remain.

This study has argued that Indonesia inherited some advantages from the Dutch colonial period, but also many disadvantages. In the early decades of the twentieth century, the Dutch built up a diversified export economy, and an effective fiscal state which promoted a range of policies in infrastructure development, education and health care, and land settlement in the less populated regions outside Java. While public expenditures were not exceptionally high on a per capita basis, there was considerable infrastructure development in Java and parts of Sumatra; some progress was also made in health and education although here the achievements were well behind Taiwan, the Philippines and British Malaya. There can be no doubt that some in the early post-1949 governments wanted to build on the Dutch legacy, but failed to mobilise the necessary resources. By 1965, the Indonesian state was far weaker than it had been in 1941, whether one looks at fiscal and monetary policy or administrative control over the vast archipelago.

That the thirty-two years when Suharto was in power saw substantial economic and social progress in Indonesia is undeniable. Admittedly he came to power after more than a decade of economic stagnation and mounting inflation, when living standards for many Indonesians had been declining. As far as we can judge from the available evidence, in the mid-1960s the great majority of the population were living below a modest poverty line, malnutrition was widespread, and infant and child mortality rates were much higher than in neighbouring countries. Over the next three decades there were considerable improvements not just in per capita GDP, but also in non-monetary indicators based on health and education.