ABSTRACT
After several decades of rapid growth and development in the post-World War II period the world economic order was in disarray and the underlying system in crisis. By 1980, the development project, offered to workers, peasant producers, women, indigenous communities and the poor as an alternative to the demands for radical change and social revolution, stalled and, to a large degree, was abandoned. In its place, the self-appointed guardians of the world economic order proceeded with a project to restructure their economic system. Like 'development' and other such geoeconomic or geopolitical 'projects' the changes associated with the new economic model have the appearance of a 'process', that is, as the products not of conscious design but of structural force beyond human or rational control. Unfortunately, there is no balance of forces in this situation and the custodians of the world economic order have a virtual monopoly on the instruments of armed force.
