Dear Janine
Very apposite points! As a NZer, I’d add that NZ’s Big Bang liberalization of 1984 and beyond was also taken to affirm WC agenda.
Worked wonders for employment of NZers at World Bank, whose numbers jumped from a steady 15 or so to 50-70, once NZers were taken to be experts in how to do the WC agenda (esp privatization). (I worked at WB in 84-88, quite independently of all this.)
WB sent planeloads of LAC officials& pols to NZ on “fact
finding tours”, and brought NZers of same categories on lecture tours of LAC. My (now) friend Luis Carlos Bresser Pereira, then minister for public admin reforms in Brazil, was completely taken in, urging Brazil to follow the NZ model, esp of New Public Management.
The whole WC promotion – Chile, NZ, etc– illustrates that
“rationality of action” as distinct from “rationality of decision making”. The former requires that everyone be convinced “there is no alternative” – either the WC or “doing nothing”.
Robert
Professor Robert H. Wade
Department of International Development
London School of Economics WC2A 2AE
Leontief Prize in Economics 2008
Very apposite points! As a NZer, I’d add that NZ’s Big Bang liberalization of 1984 and beyond was also taken to affirm WC agenda.
Worked wonders for employment of NZers at World Bank, whose numbers jumped from a steady 15 or so to 50-70, once NZers were taken to be experts in how to do the WC agenda (esp privatization). (I worked at WB in 84-88, quite independently of all this.)
WB sent planeloads of LAC officials& pols to NZ on “fact
finding tours”, and brought NZers of same categories on lecture tours of LAC. My (now) friend Luis Carlos Bresser Pereira, then minister for public admin reforms in Brazil, was completely taken in, urging Brazil to follow the NZ model, esp of New Public Management.
The whole WC promotion – Chile, NZ, etc– illustrates that
“rationality of action” as distinct from “rationality of decision making”. The former requires that everyone be convinced “there is no alternative” – either the WC or “doing nothing”.
Robert
Professor Robert H. Wade
Department of International Development
London School of Economics WC2A 2AE
Leontief Prize in Economics 2008
