Economic relevance of Non-Alignment

Non-alignment, as a tool of the foreign policies of nation-states individually and as the Movement of a sizable group of nation states collectively, has of late been reduced to a sub-system subservient to the super-power states' global econo-political-military system. For the first time, the social science doctrine of Non-alignment for the conduct of interna tional relations has been put to a quantita tive rigour in the present volume. The study works on the hypothesis that the world political system is merely the managerial side of the wider socio-economic system and holds that the socio-political-economic theory of Non-alignment must be logically consistent and empirically valid to prove its raison d'etre.

The Non-aligned Movement consumes the scarce economic resources and thus needs to be placed in the perspective of the benefits it brings. The two most favourite themes of the Movement have been disarmament and development, woven into a scenario of an end to the arms race in order to finance the the economic development of the poor coun tries. But the reality which is in conflict with this hypothesis is the armament-development syndrome: a broad pattern of two closely-knit econo-political-military systems, reflected in the West-dominated OECD-NATO complex and the East-dominated Warsaw Pact COMECON complex which do not admit of any further aid doles and trade concessions to the Third World. The two parallel protest movements, the Non-aligned Movement and the Group of 77, are caught in the whirlpool of the so-called North-South Dialogue and the mystic global negotiations for an illusory democratization of international economic relations. This volume recommends that the personne dramatis in the Non-aligned Movement must build strong domestic politico-economic systems in order to count in the stubborn world realities.