At 08:49 AM 06/24/2002 -0700, Ian cross-posted/wrote: >How do we address this failure? First, the conditions attached to >bilateral and multilateral financial assistance to developing >countries should be radically changed. It should be accepted that >the orthodox recipe is not working, and also that there can be no >"best-practice" policies that everyone should use.
I completely disagree that neo-liberal policy was a failure and I suggest that no meaningful discussion can take place while it is characterized as a failure. Of course, in terms of its advertised goals, it is a failure; but in terms of its real effects, the impoverishment of the third world and the net transfer of capital and intelligence to the west, it is a great success. The problem is not economic but political -- economically, everything is working out as it should--for the capitalists, in the short term anyway. In the long term, I think they're counting on the presence of men with guns. Joanna Bujes
