I wrote: >> The "nationalist model of growth" refers to process in which a country aims to promote balanced growth primarily based on its own resources and its own domestic markets, with a nationalistic ideology to back it up. There are a variety of different versions <<
Comment: >I am not sure a "nationalistic ideology" is a necessary ingredient .Actually, the British model was developed on the basis of an "internationalist, globalist" ideology promulgated by the fallacies of Ricardo's trade theories, which led Friedrich List in Germany to denounce it as an Anglo-Saxon trick to keep themselves ahead of the rest, in his "National System of Political Economy" where he also postulated the Infant Industry argument as the basis for a protected national development . Later on, the ECLA structuralist school of LA economics designed the import substitution models (not taught in US Econ depts) on the basis of strict sound economic reasoning , where ideology was absent. (Perhaps too absent, some claim). < I didn't say that all models of growth (e.g., the British) were nationalist. It's news to me that I didn't go to a US Econ dept. Because I did learn about import substitution and ECLA. I also said: >> "Nationalist growth leads to debt accumulation almost naturally, as does almost any growth process. (If I had my druthers, however, poor countries would eschew debt as much as possible" << Comment: >Growth, nationalist or not, can not proceed, without the creation of debt, unless the surplus in the economy reaches fantastic proportions and is totally reinvested. Debt, also shouldn't be a problem under the state theory of sovereign money and credit. Debt is a problem when it has to be undertaken in the currency of other countries, usually under hegemonic conditions. Observe, how the UK and the US were creditor countries for many years. < I don't see how we're disagreeing. Part of the problem of economic dependency is the inability to issue a "strong" currency that's acceptable internationally so that the country doesn't have to borrow dollars or pounds. Further, I didn't use the word "hegemony," but there's no way that I could forget that Latin America is under US hegemony. I add: >> "Agencies such as the World Bank have also been known to push loans too hard, encouraging indebtedness by countries that can't afford it. Local ruling elites often favor raising external debt," << Comment: >It wasn't really the World Bank (which is only involved in big infrastructure loans), but Wall St, which first pushed these private and government loans trying to put to use the recycled petro-dollars in US and European banks starting back in the mid 70's.. They did this with the aid of 1-US financial deregulation and by 2- Working sweet heart deals with the local private and political elites and 3- through the utilization of the IMF as a financial enforcing Interpol through the imposition of so called "structural adjustment programs and a drastic monetarist model in which autonomous monetary policy was basically ceded to the IMF. This has been the major contribution of Econ depts in the US led by MIT and Chicago to the development of the third world. The whole thing was done through the application of all fashioned imperial military ,political and economic power. As the privatization programs were enforced, Wall St financiers laughed all the way to the bank as they cashed in the issuing of financial claims on the previous public assets. Of course, a good portion went to the local elites which ceased to exist as "national bourgeoisies" and which led to the present nationalistic and indigenous fervor in South America. Needless to say, a great portion of these loans went to speculative activities in financial markets, gladly re-financed by Wall St up to the point they became Ponzi schemes and collapsed on their own weight. The final catastrophe , got nothing to do with "nationalism", but to the contrary, to the lack of it. < no disagreement here. I never said that the World Bank was the _only_ cause of the debt crisis. I think the only way that the countries of Latin America could have the true nationalism that you seem to be advocating would be to get rid of the bourgeoisies, replacing them with socialism. A good idea. By the way, I'd appreciate it if you'd tone down your attitude a bit. -- Jim Devine / "There can be no real individual freedom in the presence of economic insecurity." -- Chester Bowles
