Perestroika and the Strategies for Third World Development

There may not be any ideological uniformity amongst most developing countries; their development policies, however, have certain utilitarian foundations that have remained more or less uniform in their essential economic content. Most of the developing countries, irrespective of their ideological predilections, for example, believe in a dominating role for government in managing and directing economic activities, either through state enterprises or through almost-state-directed micro-management of private corporations.1 The nature and magnitude of economic expansion are largely dictated by fiscal and monetary policies pursued by the government. Their trade policies lay down the type of international relations a country could have, not only in terms of goods imported but also in terms of types of technology adopted and co-operation sought with overseas corporations. State investment in heavy industries and other infrastructure development have generally occupied the prime position. The so-called market-orientated developing economies, as opposed to more or less centrally planned economies, are in fact planned economies in all respects except their nomenclature. All this now seems to be on the brink of change. The dominance of an overall approach associated with Reagan and Thatcher during the 1980s was instrumental in many international agencies, injecting an anti-government and pro-private enterprise bias in their policies through the power of the purse even though there was strong resistance on the part of the developing countries to changing their traditional course.