O'Neill: "WB has driven poor countries into a ditch"

Juan Jose Barrios jota at netgate.com.uy
Wed Feb 27 08:14:39 PST 2002


Thanks for your comments. However, your answers below precisely prove my point: you just oversimplified your characterization. You can lecture me (or us) on this, but according to your statement, I could characterize the US, UK, Japan, and whatever country I can think of as "state-led development led by a corrupt anti-developmental state" at SOME POINT IN HISTORY AND under certain circumstances, can't I?

Also, if you think corruption is represeted by whatever intervention the State or its servants make to favor/incentive the production (producers)/consumption (consumers) of whatever good you can imagine (that is what LAC ISI is all about), then I can hardly think of one State that is not corrupt, so that would leave us with the "developmental" issue only. And I would think that "whatever is good for Coca-Cola, is good for you country" runs deep into the minds of our politicians nowadays, Brad. Check your sources on LatinAmerican politics, please...:-)))

Bradford DeLong wrote:


> >Bradford DeLong wrote:
> >
> >> Well, this is a big problem. Which is worse, or market-led development
> >> driven by clueless guys in New York who spend all their time trying
> >> to guess what average opinion expects average opinion to be?
> >
> >this is too much a simplification, Brad...what do you mean by state-led
> >development
> >led by a corrupt anti-developmental state,
>
> >???? Latin American ISIs??
>
> Certainly, for the most part.
>
> >Asian
> >Tigers??
>
> No. Corrupt, yes; anti-developmental, no.
>
> >Argentina's 1990s?
>
> No. Trying not to follow state-led development...
>
> >Perú of the 1990s?
>
> Yep.
>
> >Brazil of the 1960s or
>
> No. Corrupt, yes. Anti-democratic, yes. Anti-development, no.
>
> >Have you ever
> >consider the possibility that "state-led development led by a corrupt
> >anti-developmental state" of the 1980s and 1990s were precisely the
> >consequence of "market-led development driven by clueless guys in New York
> >who spend all their time trying to guess what average opinion expects
> >average opinion to be"?
>
> Nope. Anti-developmental states long predated the 1980s and 1990s.
> Can't blame Juan Peron on the "Washington Consensus," after all...
>
> Brad DeLong



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