The Dynamics of the New Poor Power

Abstract

Few would deny that the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has, until recently, been a relative failure.² Many reasons have been advanced for this, but the main reason is surely that, from the developed countries’ point of view, it seems all give and no take. The poor countries’ moral appeals and appeals to distant and uncertain national self-interest of the rich, backed by masses of facts and figures, were not enough. There must also be appeals to the clear and imminent self-interest and backing by power.

Reprinted from Resources Policy, (June 1976). This chapter is an expanded version of one published in A World Divided: The Less Developed Countries in the World Economy, ed. G. K. Helleiner (Cambridge University Press (1975). I am grateful to Gerald Helleiner, Jeffrey James and Hans Singer for helpful comments.