Doug Henwood wrote: > > > > But what's a small country with a tiny internal market and little > external finance to do? I don't know the answer, but it seems a lot > of leftists don't appreciate the difficulty of the question. >
Such a small country faces two risks, one certain, the other only highly probable. The certainty is that if it accepts U.S. aid and goes for export-led growth. If it does not aim primarily at self-subsistence at whatever level, with external relations marginal and parenthetical -- it faces certain misery. The other alternative, of attempting some version of self-sufficiency (modified carefully) probably will fail and the population will be miserable. (Though they will be less apt to have to live in fear of death squads.) I think a possibility, even if the odds are overwhelmingly against one, is rather better than the certainty of defeat and misery. There are few if any guarantees in this world. The nearest I know to a guarantee is that ties with the U.S. lead to catastrophe. Carrol > Doug
