Nigeria Thumbs Nose at IMF, Globalization

Here we see how "anti-globalization" tends to fall down. In my view, the point is to be opposed to capitalism, a global system. There's nothing radical about tarrifs nor is there anything radical about supporting Nigerian capitalists.

Finance minister, Adamu Ciroma says ''the macro-economic targets should be people-oriented to enhance political stability''.

''Because the government values the benefits of political stability, democratic consolidation, credibility and accountability, it does not wish to continue with arrangements where only narrowly defined macro-economic considerations come into play,'' he says.


Political Stability? in Nigeria? These two have not belonged in the same sentence for a long time.

wow, you would think those idiots would be able to read history books and had figured out what happened to south america when they tried these exact same strategies.

oh well.
sometimes positive examples of embracing economic globalization (s. korea, hong kong, etc.) are not enough, and you need to keep around a few blistering failures in order to show people what the consequences of economic autarky are

to Bob:
just when exactly did south america try those strategies? do you mean Chile? Argentina? don't be an idiot yourself and refuse to realize what happened when people rejected neoliberalism. it wasn't no market failure, it was some greedy elistist haciend-owning motherfuckers that decided to ruthlessly/violently bring down political and economic systems that weren't on par with their profits (or in many cases, on par with american companies' profits).

oh, btw, there is one S. American country trying these politics these days, Venezuela. Their economy has been growing for the past 2 years and more and more people eat, go to school, and have medical benefits than any other time previous. however, there is a strong movement to take out that current government, simply because it doesn't benefit the elite. can't say there's human rights violations, or hunger, lack of education, lack of medicine, etc., certainly nothing like IMF-blown Argentina, Brasil, Nicaragua, etc., etc.

i won't deny, politically this is a pretty shady move by Nigeria, and the article tends to let you know this is probably more propaganda than real economic policies. economically, the strategy is obviously being applied far too fast to really be able to be pulled off.

but neoliberalism has more than proved its true face of exploitation throughout the 3rd world and with the Argentina situation recently (which even ex-IMF people blame the neoliberal SAP's for this situation). don't expect too many 3rd world countries like Nigeria to stay on course with neoliberal economics that have hardly served the people. -M

venezeula a sucecss story? hardly

every macroeconomist will readily admit that you can achieve short-term growth rather easily. the real kicker is long term growth. two years means nothing, check back on venezuala 20 years later and see if they are still doing populist economics and if its working. history proves this unlikely.

the south americans tried this with dependancy and were shafted with staganation. interesting that you brought up argentina. for decades it followed socialist economic policies to great harm. for the past ten years it took a more middle ground approach taking in elements of free-trade economics in addition to its still unfortunately socialist policies. even with this odd mix the results were still spectacular, only becoming undone by their too rigid insistence on the dollar peg. this is hardly a horror story.

and the historical record is clear. states that have embraced trade (hong kong, singnapore, korea) have prospered whereas those that embraced autarky have failed.

The historical record is clear: those "Asian tigers" (hong kong, singnapore, korea) that did so well over the past few decades did so by following a path of development utterly opposed to the IMF's prescriptions. These countries had government involvement in development, rules on foreign capital investment, and tariff protections for internal industries.