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∂AIL Scientific American↓415 Madison Avenue↓New York, N.Y. 10017∞
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Sirs:

	I have never found myself so doubtful of a %2Scientific
American%1 article as I am of the whole special issue on economic
development (September 1980).
The trouble is that the whole expresses the "third world" party
line that the slow development of the "developing" nations is the
fault of the non-communist industrial nations, and that the only
way of increasing the rate of development is a massive wealth
transfer.

	Dr. Azize's paper is characterized by obsequiousness to the
communist countries and also towards O.P.E.C., disdaining to
complicate his argument by mentioning O.P.E.C.'s contribution
to the present difficulties of the underdeveloped countries.

	One can understand that this line is popular with the leaders
of underdeveloped countries since it excuses their failures.  One can
understand that it is popular with the communist countries who give
the third world nothing but weapons.  One can also understand why it
is popular with those whose road to power in the Western democracies
is based on instigation and manipulation of guilt feelings.

	However, the doctrine is false.  The industrial countries
did not cause the poverty of the underdeveloped countries.  In fact
those countries have advanced in direct proportion to their adoption
of the methods of the industrialized countries and in proportion to
the scale of their economic interaction with it.
Moreover, the success of Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore,
Brazil and Mexico are not at all due to wealth transfers from
industrial countries.  Nor are the more limited successes of India
and Mainland China due to external aid.

	They have received much help out of good will and somewhat more
by accusatory demands.  However, this strategy is self-defeating for
two reasons.  First and foremost, it diverts internal attention from
the need for generating capital internally and from the need to
encourage both foreign and domestic entrepreneurial investment.

	Second, they aren't going to get the $300 billion they are
demanding.  The public of the industrial democracies, especially the
American public, increasingly resents the attitude expressed in the
article by Dr. Dadzie, albeit less stridently than it is likely to be
expressed in the U.N. Assembly.  This resentment has resulted and
increasingly will result in reduced foreign aid budgets.

.sgn