ABSTRACT
United States (US) taxpayers have been asked virtually to double their contribution to the World Bank, which has rapidly emerged as the leading source of development loans, projected at $9.8 billion for 1979. The principal recommendation of the just completed Presidential Commission on World Hunger is to triple US foreign assistance to the Third World. The "principal purpose" of US development assistance programs, according to Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, is "to meet the basic needs of the poor people in the developing countries." The belief being popularized by the US aid establishment is that development planners have gone through a learning process in which their strategy to end poverty and hunger has been progressively improved. In the countries receiving US economic aid, the power structure in the countryside alone is enough to make the monopolization by the better-off a high probability.
