Discussion of chapter 7

There is an element of inconsistency in the chapter on this aspect. We are told that ‘an exporting country need not assume the risk in a large-scale project’ but later in the chapter this view has been significantly modified when Harris observes that ‘the dependence of exporting countries involves being subject to the vagaries of the international market’. The latter appears to represent a much closer approximation to reality.

The risk to the exporting country can, indeed, be taken further and made much more explicit. The essential element of risk for an exporting country is surely that, after the development of such a project, the country and its economy cannot and will not ever be the same again. It is impossible to get back to the status quo ante and it will be difficult to go on to a broader based pattern of change—except perhaps through extreme political solutions from left or right.