Re: socialism finito, sez Nation

["Anthony D'Costa" <dcosta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The recent exit of Jeffrey Sachs, the de facto IMF rep in Russia,
underscores the falsity of an assumption that most mainstream economists
hold dear--that economics as a process is the same everywhere.
Furthermore, the premise that markets are natural institutions make these
economists stubbornly believe that markets can be created overnight.
Such simplistic notions naturally fail to recognize the absence of
particular kinds of legal frameworks, administrative capacity to implement
reforms, and ignore fundamentally the political processs.  Macroeconomic
stability sans institutions and externalization of the domestic economy
when the project of nation-building is incomplete are not only contradictory
but virtually a guarantee for disaster.

Anthony D'Costa
U of Washington