No economic solution without political alternatives:
Failure of Washington Consensus denounced

Solutions for Third World countries will not come from the 
economic side, nor from cosmetic changes within the neo-liberal 
model; without political transformations, economic development 
will be impossible, as will an equitable distribution of wealth, 
justice, democracy and national sovereignty.

Theories such as these were developed by economists and others at 
the 6th International Forum on Globalisation and Problems of 
Development in Havana.

Delegates at the forum agreed that the neo-liberal model does not 
work; at the moment of truth, it does no more than to apply the 
same recipes imposed by international financial organisations and 
other centres of power. Thus, in questioning the current process 
of globalisation, one should focus on the political concepts that 
sustain it.

It would seem logical that years of neo-liberal policies in 
regions such as Latin America have evidently been a total failure 
in terms of social and economic development.

Dr John Williamson, one of the Washington Consensus architects, 
and Dr Guy Meredith, Western hemisphere assistant director of the 
International Monetary Fund (IMF), maintained that neither the 10 
neo-liberal "commandments" of the Consensus nor the IMF are 
responsible for the crises facing countries in the region, nor 
for increasing social instability.

Neither are they responsible, they asserted, for the increasing 
foreign debts and growing subordination to capitalism's 
ambitions, led by the United States and followed by its servile 
European allies.

Dr Meredith said that although direct foreign investment in Latin 
America has declined considerably since 1998, "in the medium term 
we can be more optimistic", although "it will take time and 
development will be more limited".

Contrary to the majority conference opinions, Dr. Meredith also 
stated that the IMF does not impose its programs, and that in 
fact, countries participate voluntarily. In his view they 
approach the Fund because other institutions offer less desirable 
options.

In response, Julio Gambina, professor of political economy at the 
Law Faculty of the National University of Rosario in Argentina, 
said ironically that if the Fund does not impose, but rather 
reaches out "a helping hand", then "we're asking them to take 
their hands off Latin America and the Caribbean".