ABSTRACT
These problems are not caused, as conventional wisdom would have it, by the failure of the least developed nations to be integrated into the world economy. On the contrary, their markets are very open – to the point where trade accounts for a higher percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) than in the developed countries. The problem lies in their unsustainable debt burden and the protectionist strategies of the rich countries, both of these causes being attributable in the final analysis to the refusal of the wealthier nations to curb their own markets or compromise on the basis of their comparative affluence. The ultimate source of this division between underand over-development is to be found in the competitive nature of the market itself, and the license – and almost irresistible encouragement – it constantly gives to the prosperous to protect and enhance their riches, and thus to continue to produce and consume in ways that further degrade the environment and render the already poor even more destitute. This division, of course, has its analogue on a smaller scale within the confines of the nationstate, where the contrasts between the aspirations and enjoyments of the privileged sectors and the miseries and despair of the least advantaged are stark reminders of the structural inequalities perpetuated as a condition of the success of capitalist societies.
