In a message dated 4/12/2006 6:35:29 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
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).
JDevine also says:
"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.
JDevine adds:
"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.
Cristobal Senior
