Freedom from debt : the reappropriation of development through financial self-reliance / Jacques B. Gélinas ; translated by Arnold Bennett and Raymond Robitaille.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gélinas, Jacques, 1930-

Standardized Title:

Et si le Tiers Monde s'autofinançait. English

Language:

English

French

Subjects (All):

Debts, External--Developing countries.

Debts, External.

Developing countries.

Developing countries--Economic conditions.

Economic conditions.

Saving and investment--Developing countries.

Saving and investment.

Autarchy.

Physical Description:

xiii, 178 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Zed Books ; Ottawa : Inter Paves ; Dhaka : University Press ; New York,NY : Distributed in the USA by St. Martin's Press, [1998]

Summary:

This important book deals with two issues: the emancipation of the Third World from the debt system and the reappropriation of development by civil society through financial self-reliance. The author begins by analyzing the failure of 50 years of externally financed development. He shows how the foreign aid system has had the perverse effect of downplaying the role of domestic savings and creating a chronic economic and technological dependency. Massive foreign aid also subverted the political process in many Third World countries by giving birth to a new class which Gelinas calls the "aidocracy." He traces the roots of autonomous development based on domestic capital accumulation and highlights the much neglected resource that exists in even the poorest countries: savings. This kind of development already at work in the "people's economy, " can only begin at the grassroots, not at the level of the state.

Notes:

"The English-language version has been revised and updated"--Verso t.p.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [167]-172) and index.

ISBN:

185649585X

1856495868

OCLC:

38898147