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How much do economists really know? In most cases, they claim to have profound knowledge but in fact understand little and obscure almost everything. This book exposes the myths of mainstream economics and explains why current policies fail to serve the interests of the vast majority of people in the United States, Europe and elsewhere. Instead, they serve the few, increasing inequality and poverty.

Countries live in the shadow of their past: responses to current circumstances are conditioned by what has gone before. In developing countries plans for economic growth are conditioned by previous policy – or the lack of it – and by what was done or what was not done in previous decades. In Africa south of the Sahara, with the exception of Liberia and Ethiopia, it is the past history of colonial domination which conditions the present.

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- Acknowledgments -- Foreword -- Introduction -- PART I DEBT CRISIS IN THE THIRD WORLD -- Chapter 1 The Outlook for Development -- Chapter 2 External Shocks, Adjustment, and Income Distribution -- Chapter 3 Losers Pay Reparations, Or How the Third World Lost the Lending War -- PART II THE DEBT CRISIS AND COMMERCIAL BANKS -- Chapter 4 Background to the Debt Crisis: Structural Adjustment in the Financial Markets -- Chapter 5 Safe Passage Through Dire Straits: Managing an Orderly Exit from the Debt Crisis -- PART III STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT: SOLUTION OR PART OF THE PROBLEM -- Chapter 6 World Bank-Supported Adjustment Programs -- Chapter 7 Assessing Structural Adjustment Programs: A Summary of Country Experience -- Chapter 8 Undervaluation, Adjustment, and Growth -- Chapter 9 Old Wine in New Bottles: Policy-Based Lending in the 1980s -- PART IV STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT: IMPACT IN THE THIRD WORLD -- Chapter 10 Social Costs of Adjustment in Latin America -- Chapter 11 Political Change and Economic Policy in Latin America and the Caribbean in 1988 -- Chapter 12 The Demise of the Labor Aristocracy in Africa: Structural Adjustment in Tanzania -- PART V SEEKING A SOLUTION -- Chapter 13 Facing the Realities of the Debt Crisis -- Chapter 14 From Adjustment with Recession to Adjustment with Growth -- Chapter 15 From Adjustment and Restructuring to Development -- Chapter 16 Is to Forgive the Debt Divine? -- Chapter 17 Foreign Lending at the Brink -- Bibliography -- Index -- About the Contributors -- About the Editor