The United States and the Developing Economies [antikvár]

Introduction Perhaps no policy issue in recent times has stirred as much controversy as the U.S. foreign aid program. Each year the Congress —and the public at large—cast a thoroughly jaundiced eye at this "temporary" program of assistance to the less developed world. Each year we have had a round of appraisals and reappraisals, lamentations about the folly of "give-aways," and protestations about the corruptibility of man. Nevertheless, in spite of occasional frayed nerves in Washington and the near-exhaustion of the alphabet as the foreign aid agency is periodically "re-born" under a new set of initials (ECA, FOA, MSA, ICA, AID), foreign aid has consistently enjoyed the support of a bipartisan majority in Congress and seems firmly imbedded in our national budget. It is thus fair to inquire why we continue to subject ourselves to the annual ritual of the "numbers game" on Capitol Hill, yet invariably emerge determined to honor what has become a basic national commitment. Any attempt to answer this question must be based on the understanding that foreign aid constitutes a novel response to a novel, post World War II phenomenon. Never before has the world witnessed the virtually simultaneous emergence of a large number of new, and for the most part poor, nation-states all clamoring for a measure of "economic independence" to go along with their recently acquired political independence. Once colonial rule—in no small measure responsible for initially stirring up these traditional societies into an awareness of the possibilities of economic progress—could no longer be blamed for the slow pace of economic advance, the attention of virtually all the governments of Africa, Asia, and Latin America has been turned by necessity to the achievement of this overriding objective. As a consequence, century-long traditions of apathy and resignation have yielded, at least in the cities and at the governmental level, to an evergrowing consciousness of international disparities and an evergrowing faith in the attainability of change. What do the developing countries bring to the task they have thus set themselves? Precious little in the way of material re- vii