Book Review Essay Carlota Azevedo Leite

My current work will focus on the book "The myth of development: The non-viable economies of the 21st century" written by Oswaldo de Rivero, a former Peruvian diplomat. The book enunciates all the problems related to the "developing world" which the author designates as "undeveloped world" or "non-viable economies". In six chapters, the author shows how the concept of "development" remains as a mythological perception. This myth have been built for years by the international community and consists on the belief that countries in Latin America, Africa, Asia and Middle East with huge rates of demographic explosion, raw materials exports at unprofitable prices believe that they can compete in the same technological level as the developed countries and, as well achieve the same high standard of living by following neoliberal reforms.
The underdeveloped countries have been brought in this new global economic competition as non-viable economies ruled by the invisible hand and the comparatives advantages. They don't have a specialised national market with high technological content and they don't have any economic or financial or commercial power in the international field because they are weak states with lack of basic institutions, drug-driven terrorism, poverty and unemployment controlled by non-elected infrastructures like IMF and World Bank. The problem is that these quasi nation states are unfinished national projects that came from independent movements and internal conflicts and that didn't have time to constitute a common culture and a real working and educated middle class - a real nation - because the political authority – the state - came first.
The former diplomat explains how the global power has led the globe to "apolarity." The end of the Cold War was a result of a new global economic era ruled by neoliberalism's policies regulated by a new global aristocracy formed by non-state actors like transnational corporations, IMF, World Bank and WTO. The transnational enterprises infiltrated in all national economies implementing patterns of consumption, services, capital and credit cards with the only goal of achieving profit. They don't have nationality and no international responsibility. They incite the deterioration of the undeveloped countries that can't compete as the same level as the developed ones, so they search for transnational investments and loans that leads them to debts, insolvencies, social exclusion and unemployment. IMF and World Bank have been supervising these countries for decades and implementing at least more than 300 adjustments programmes that had led them to massive social devastation and the fail of the modern nation-state. These structures are ruled by people that are anonymous are chosen to decide the values of countries' currency, prices of energy or food and cost of credit without had been democratic elected. They dictate the new economic global rules and the undeveloped countries have no choice but implement their 3 most important and known reforms: privatisation, deregulation and liberalisation.
The third chapter moves forward to the idea of International Darwinism. The writer appeals for the way the study of the neoclassical economics have been misunderstood and mistreated because Adam Smith's theory put emphasis on the existence of the invisible hand in the market but also a society with moral values (social protection for example).The author demonstrates how the concept of Darwin's survival of the fittest, strongest and the best, combined with misinterpretation of the invisible hand has now created a "global Darwinian jungle". The writer demonstrates how the thought of material progress command the main ideology behind the global Darwinian jungle. De Rivero further illustrates how the market is reaching to an extreme point of speculative transnational capital and finance, reaching a "planetary gambling house" that never stops. Through this perceptive, de Rivero recognizes that the technological innovation united with intellectual property rights represent the most significant global strength.
The earth cannot tolerate a world of developed nations. The globalisation of consumer patterns carries out mountains of nuclear, chemical and toxic waste. This type of lifestyle is promoted all over the world as the only way to be happy and rich but the irony is that if the undeveloped countries prevent it from increase, because otherwise the earth's biosphere would be rapidly destroyed.
In addition, he states that the only way the developing world can save themselves from this jungle is to start to modernise the construction of products and services like electronic equipment, semiconductors, biotechnology, soft wares and aerospace industries. This all seem very idealistic and is almost impossible given the presently global jungle ruled by interest that lays downs on quick and higher profits and material gratification with no though for the environmental and social costs. This brutal version of capitalism chases happiness as never before, to be accomplished by the highest point of material accumulation.
We live in a world characterized by the geoeconomy and technocracy but unfortunately not all the countries can be part of the exclusive group of players of the developed club. The result of their incapability to achieve capitals, services and goods from the world market of their growing populations, countries do not develop. They simply become non-viable economies with social disintegration and eventual collapse.
The only thing that this new capitalism is creating is the rise of new social disparities, new monopolies and a new economic oligarchy ruled by anonym's non-elected instruments that regulate all the financial and economic networks leading to the decline of nation-state sovereignty and destruction of national capitalism. Given to this predatory neoliberalist version of the world today it is almost impossible to promote any system of preventive intensive care to non-viable economies. The United Nations and their peacekeeping operations, known as "blue-helmeted troops", controlled by the Security Council proved that were and are practically impotent and discrete to help those who needs. We can see that with the examples in Somalia, Rwanda, Congo and former Yugoslavia. They didn't punish the aggressors, they didn't force the peace and they didn't help the victims. The truth is that there is lack of interest by the consumer societies of the developed countries that reject to "sacrifice the lives of theirs sons and pay more taxes to establish a new world order", especially in countries that don't mean nothing to them and that are far away from their homes.
In the end of this whole Darwinian global jungle, the most important challenge for countries like Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Somalia, Cambodia, Haiti, Mozambique, Colombia, Liberia, Senegal, etc.. is not to improve their national economy but to survive. They must establish a new equilibrium among the demographic explosion and the vital resources like water, food and energy. De Rivero ends the chapter by proposing the necessity for a "Pact for Survival" between "all the political leaders of any poor country." He recommends that all the political leaders of the undeveloped countries should work together to defeated their situation of poverty and debt.
This book exposes all the problems that were and, still are related to the countries of the Third World. It was written in 2001 and we can still read it nowadays for the study of development and cooperation. It predicted what is happening right now. This 185 new countries were born during the 19th and 20th century and during The Cold War were used as simply political influential areas that never had the chance to really develop their national economy to compete with other countries and the most important, to improve a real notion of nation and as well as basic social democratic instruments. Instead of that they enjoyed the amounts of money given by the former USSR and USA believing that they will always have economic help from them. But, when the Berlin's Wall fall down, this dream became a nightmare for countries Asia, Africa and Latin America that were used to receive economic and financial aid to solve their internal problems.
The fact is that the concept "developing countries" has been said over and over during international meetings with the intuit of helping them to developed but, the truth is that, in the end "the richer are getting richer, and the poor are getting poor". All the problems that were frequently ignored in the 20th century are now blowing up with huge levels of poverty, social exclusion, unemployment and thousands and thousands of immigrants asking for help in the Mediterranean sea as well the currently war in Syria that provoked the larger wave of refugees since the end of Second World War. Now, the international powers are starting to care about these problems because there are being affected by them. Presently, we just have to wait and hope that maybe, for the 1st time in many years, these so-called democratic capitalist developed countries will take an attitude that will really help to stop with wars and finally help these countries to really develop, because this myth is getting old and the time is passing by and this is an international issue of high importance because there is people living with less than 1$ per day and there is people dying and suffering from civil wars that never ends.
Bibliography:
Rivero, Oswaldo (2001) The myth of development: The non-viable economies of the 21st century.
Carlota Resende Moreira Azevedo Leite
Student nº 9002203
14/12/2015




"The myth of development"
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