[PEN-L:11441] Re: Millennium takes a short cut?

[Colin Danby <danbyc@xxxxxxx>]

> Has a volte-face truly occurred at the World Bank ... ?

Maybe the Guardian was being sardonic.  You can find a summary of the 97
WDR at

http://www.worldbank.org/html/extpb/wdr97/english/wdr97su1.htm

I'd say it's at most a lane change, certainly not a U-turn.

The World Bank has just begun a charm offensive toward NGOs, which may
explain the more populist language in this latest WDR.  How excited you
get about a slightly more social-democratic flavor of neoliberalism I
guess depends on where you stand and/or start from.  There are worse
things.

It has become clearer to the IMF and World Bank in the last few years
that capitalism doesn't just spring into existence if you get rid of
state intervention; rather you're apt to end up with primitive
accumulation by various mafias.  (See, along these lines, an amusing
memoir in the Aug 97 Harper's about USAID's promotion of privatization
in Kazakhstan.)  Hence the particular emphasis on a property-defending
legal system, which is what Stiglitz seems to be talking about when he
calls for "appropriate institutional foundations for markets."

Best, Colin