The Third World agenda understood that the economic suffocation of the darker nations came not only from abstract economic principles but crucially because these principles had been set up through the political intervention of powerful actors. The rules of international trade, for instance, were not simply those of an a priori economic theory but were devised by the powerful to suit their interests. Because of this analysis, any reform had to be both about the politics of the economy (who writes the rules) and the economics of politics (who holds the economic muscle to allow themselves to write the rules) . The interrelationship between economics and politics defined the work of the Third World agenda.

[...] Drawing from the work of w. Arthur Lewis, a com­rade and friend of Prebisch, the Jamaican government pursued the policy of "industrialization by invitation." A system of leases permitted the government to channel industrial investment into those areas of the economy that allowed for social development. Economic policy generally drew from the import-substitution theory, and the government relied on targeted direct foreign investment, notably in the bauxite sector. The latter provided Jamaica with most of its foreign exchange earnings. Discovered in the 1940s, the bauxite reserves fell prey to Canadian and U.S. firms starting in 1 952. These firms have since dominated the extraction of the mineral, with Jamaica becoming the largest exporter to North America in the 1960s. But as with sugar and tourism, the Jamaican people did not benefit from their natural resources. The only return to Jamaica came in the way of modest taxes to the government, meager wages to the working class, and a small tribute to the Jamaican managers at the mines and plantations - for this reason, what Jamaica exported despite its fabulous resources was cheap labor, and what it gained for that was a pittance toward its grandiose development aims.

By the early 1 970s, the government reactivated its efforts to break Jamaica out of its impoverished chrysalis at the nether end of global capitalism. Manley' s son Michael ran a ferocious and successful political campaign against the global economic system that stacked the decks against countries like Jamaica. Once in power, Michael Manley promoted the construction of democratic socialism for Jamaica, but his regime did not try to disassociate itself from the world capitalist system, or even the overwhelming dominance of financiers of the commercial or IMF variety. Keeping Jamaica hooked up to the infusion of foreign aid or investment meant that the government had to respond to the demands of the foreign money managers rather than the long-term developmental needs of the people of Jamaica. Short-term returns to the investors dominated the planning even of the democratic socialist state.

[...] World inflation, high oil prices, and a drop in commodity prices effected the reserves, as it did those of most of the darker nations. In 1960, the total debt of the 133 states that the world Bank counted as part of the "developing countries" held a total public and private debt just short of US $18 billion. In ten years, the debt had escalated to $75 billion, and when Jamaica went into fiscal crisis, it was $113 billion. By 1982, the debt had reached the astronomical figure of $612 billion. While many scholars and commentators blame the oil crisis of 1973-74 for the ballooning debt, this is a superficial argument. The rise in oil prices due to the action of the OPEC cartel only exacerbated tendencies that had already stymied the social development of the formerly colonized states. The distorted development agenda followed by most of the Third world, whether those that adopted or shunned socialism, and the imperialist pressure faced by these states produced a structurally impoverished international political economy. When the oil crisis hit, it provided the conjuncture for the Third World's structural rot.

[...] During the first six months of 1974, when the fiscal effects of the oil crisis became clear, the G-7 enjoyed a $6 billion surplus with the nonpetroleum exporting Third World states, but it suffered a $4 1 billion deficit with the oil exporting states. A year later, the nonpetroleum states owed $2 1 billion, whereas the G-7 owed the oil group $2 1 billion.21 The scale had been balanced. The rise in oil revenue for the G-7 had been offset by the surplus owed by the oil-less Third World. Furthermore, the oil states, as we saw earlier, held their profits largely in U.S . dollars, which meant that as the U.S. dollar abandoned the gold standard in 1971 , its own standing in the global economy remained high because petrodollars kept it in demand. The rise in petrodollars allowed the United States to abandon the very macroeconomic restrictions it demanded of the Third World, and therefore run a deficit to strengthen its domestic economy and expand its already-considerable military.

[...] The East Asian miracle, for Rajaratnam, was located in the city.
This was not the industrial town of the nineteenth century. These cities
represented the new mobile epoch of IMF-driven globalization. The idea
of the global city ignored production, emphasized consumption, and
made money through distribution. [...]

Debt hangs heavy for the bulk of the planet. In 1 970, when the Third World project was intact, the sixty states classified as "low-income" by the Eorld Bank owed commercial lenders and international agencies $25 billion. Three decades later, the debt of these states ballooned to $523 billion. An impoverished conversation on debt yields no agenda to combat this fundamental ailment for the former Third World. These are not "poor" countries. Over the course of these three decades, the sixty states paid $550 billion in principle and interest on loans worth $540 billion. Yet they still owe $523 billion. The alchemy of international usury binds the darker nations.