US Imperialism and the Neoliberal Offensive

Abstract

The term “development” is generally understood as a combination of improvements in the quality of people’s lives marked by a reduction or alleviation of poverty, an increased capacity to meet the basic needs of society’s members, and the sustainability of livelihoods. Empowerment and changes in institutionalized practices are necessary to bring about these improvements. The “idea of development” can be traced back to the eighteenth-century project of “enlightened” philosophers and social reformers as a means to bring about “progress”—a society characterized by freedom from tyranny, superstition and poverty, and social equality. However, as noted by Wolfgang Sachs and his associates in postdevelopment theory (1992), it was reinvented, as it were, in 1948, in the context of (1) a postwar world capitalist order based on the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), a free trade negotiating forum; (2) an emerging east-west conflict and cold war; and (3) a national independence struggle by countries seeking to escape the yoke of European colonialism and the reach of imperial power—Pax Britannica in the prewar and Pax Americana in the new postwar context.