Publisher's Synopsis
Face reality. Think the unthinkable. Be intellectually honest and politically realistic about what is happening to the overwhelming majority of people in Third World countries. With a very few exceptions, development has not come. Nor is it going to. The necessary investment cannot take the strain. Instead we already see states collapsing into "ungovernable chaotic entities" under the control of warlords, drug traffickers, and mafias. State-driven, communist and neo-liberal development models have all failed most of the people all the time. Most countries are not in the process of becoming Newly Industrialised Countries (NICs), but Non-viable National Economies (NNEs). What then is to be done? The wealth of nations agenda must be replaced by a survival of nations agenda. To prevent increasing disorders, many countries will have to abandon dreams of development and adopt instead a policy of national survival based on the research for water, food and energy security and the stabilisation of their populations.
