On Thu, 27 Apr 2000, Doug Henwood wrote:
> Summers claimed at the time he was being "ironic" and "provocative."
Well yes, exactly. I remember both the LBO-talk discussion and the discussion in LBO: The Magazine. What I guess I'm not clear on is whether everyone on this list considers this the transparent excuse of a man who got caught saying something outrageous on the record, or whether some allow that Lant Prichett and he might really have thought of this along the lines of Swift's _A Modest Proposal_.
> The last sentence of the excerpt is a deep truth.
Exactly so. And it's exactly that line that stopped me. They clearly can't accept the inverse of that last argument -- that all Bank proposals for liberalization are wrong. So unless they got carried away and didn't realize what they were saying, it seems that this memo has to be serious -- that they seriously thought of themselves people mercilessly following logic to places where the rest of the world is as yet too weak-willed to follow yet. Like a pair of Doctor Strangeloves.
> >The problem with the arguments against all of these proposals for
> >more pollution in LDCs (intrinsic rights to certain goods, moral
> >reasons, social concerns, lack of adequate markets, etc.) could be
> >turned around and used more or less effectively against every Bank
> >proposal for liberalization.
Michael
__________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com