Re: Monbiot on the WTO

[Patrick Bond <pbond@xxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx>
> You're doing the same thing that the IMF-Treasury-Wall Street complex
> does - equate trade with capital flows. Keynes said "goods," which
> you elide into "capital."

Doug, come on, you know the rest of the quote: "Above all, let finance be
primarily national."

> And Monbiot was talking about the
> cross-border movement of goods & services, not about portfolio
> investment.

So? He is mistaken, quite simply. Just like Bhagwati.

> Could small countries in Africa ever produce a variety of
> sophisticated industrial goods?

Well, we've been through the colonial-era Zimbabwe story, which was
impressive notwithstanding the self-defeating racism.

But sure, it's very hard to do autarchy. That's why advocates of delinking
like Amin and Bello specify that they are not for 100% autarchy. They
promote delinking from the most destructive circuitry of capital, namely
pure export-led growth based upon primary commodities, and debt repayment.
Join 'em, Doug?