In response to Doug's comments (below): I hope I did not give the idea that I thought there was some simple set of policies that countries could follow that would relatively quickly and painlessly produce development.
But that said, if I were advising South Koreans I would certainly not say that development would be advanced by implementing policies that increase so called labor flexibility which means making it easier to layoff workers and use temporary workers. Or that development would be advanced by creating massive special economic zones where foreign owners and workers can have their own housing, where English would be the official language, where foreign companies would be allowed to establish their own for profit schools and hospitals (but Koreans could not although they can use the facilities), where foreign investors would get to avoid many labor and environmental regulations, and so on. But that is what the Korean government is doing. And all because it sees export led growth as the only way forward and critical to that is attracting more and more foreign direct investment. I doubt that you would think that those are good policies. And I also doubt that you would think it helpful for stable development if all the countries in the region intensified their competing with each other to produce the same export goods for the same markets, with labor costs and conditions being sacrificed to win the competition. Wasn�t that a part of the underlying cause of the 1997-98 crisis? So, yes, capitalism is not hospitable to development. It appears to becoming increasingly less so. That is not the same as saying that third world countries are not participating more in the international division of labor. They are, but all the indicators certainly suggest that this activity is not leading to what I would imagine you and I would call development. So, doesn�t it make sense to be critical of export-led growth strategies even if we recognize the difficulties involved in developing a new strategy. I would think offering that critical perspective in the context of an engagement with on-going struggles of workers in those countries is precisely what we should be doing. Marty Quoting Doug Henwood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > Martin Hart-Landsberg wrote: > > >So, my point is that this kind of strategy is not one that we should > be > >endorsing as providing a real framework for general advancement of > >working class interests. > > Well yeah, but how? Suppose you were advising the S Korean > government > - what would you say? Or the Haitian government? > > Years ago, at a little roundtable on the World Bank organized by > Susan George, a bunch of us were gassing on in our usual radical > manner when a former official in Manley's finance ministry in > Jamaica > said, "You have no idea what it's like to have to come up with $100 > million in hard currency next week." I've never forgotten that. He's > right - I had no idea, and still don't. But I think about it a lot. > > Doug >
