Submitted by tp, Aug 31, 2007 12:25

sameer, forgive me if i've read your post incorrectly, but as i read it, its not responding in any way to anything clark's actually said. debating aid by presupposing that aid is necessary is a little like debating a woman's right to choose while presupposing that every child must be born. its useless. and so a statement like "Also in the real world, governments are restricted on what industrial policies they can follow (and health and education policies) by severe budget caps imposed by the International Monetary Fund. If that institution denies its seal of approval, governments have no access to aid money that in many cases is used to pay unsustainable debts," is just completely irrelevant. who cares about the imf? or the world bank for that matter? they're opaque, corrupt puppets for the u.s./eu, as you correctly point out. but nobody MUST give them credibility/legitimacy. most economists don't. and what clark's saying here is that by restricting policy to comply with regulations that just don't make sense, these countries are damning themselves twice over. aid isn't necessary is clark's argument. so for you to say that these guys can't practice what he preaches because they're looking for aid is missing the larger argument. if you want to debate whether industrialization can occur WITHOUT aid, maybe thats worth considering. or if you want to debate the merits of industrial policy, that's worth considering as well. but you're response isn't a response in any sense of the conventional word, and you'd do well to really consider what clark is saying here.

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