ABSTRACT
In the widest perspective, the prospects for the New International Economic Order (NIEO) depend less on some particular devices or resource distributions than on the international conditions and processes taken as a whole. The very success of less developed countries (LDC) efforts to break through supply constraints may actually Intensify the NIEO problem, as pressures shift from domestic bottlenecks to international barriers. As to the actual LDC hardships, there is general agreement on the condition of poverty, low productivity, structural lag, imbalances of trade, shortages of foreign exchange, and burden of accumulated indebtedness. Externally, LDCs can take advantage of widening international markets for capital, technology, and management. Many of the LDCs will have access to virtually unlimited supplies of all factors of production, on which they can draw without soon encountering scarcities that would force up prices severely along the lines predicted by neoclassical theory.
