Paul's talking about Thailand? One of the success cases for export-oriented development? Adult literacy rate of 95%? Life expectancy at birth of 69? GDP per capita today (even with the impact of the Asian crisis) more than three times what it was a quarter century ago? GDP per capita of $6000 a year (roughly equal to the U.S. in 1920 if you don't believe Michael Boskin; to the U.S. in 1940 if you do)? With next to nobody surviving on less than $1 a day (compared to half of Peru or 15% of Mexico? (But with 41% of the population without access to a clinic; and with a richest 20%-poorest 20% income ratio of 9.4.)
Was it Joan Robinson who said that that capitalist exploitation is exploitation, but that in many times and at many places the absence of capitalist exploitation is worse?
And isn't Manuel Castells today is making a similar argument: that global redlining that excludes large chunks of the globe from the network society is the process that is doing the most today to create global extreme poverty?
Of course, it does all depend on just what the "alternative" is...
Brad DeLong