The International Dimension

Abstract

We have been preoccupied in much of the earlier part of this book with what I have called the first obscenity — gross inequality of wealth and income within the developing countries. So far most of the discussion has been about policies which individual governments in the Third World could adopt to improve the lives of their poorest people. It is now time to turn our attention to the second obscenity — gross inequality between the rich and poor countries. Most of the international conferences concentrate on this second subject, and the Seventh Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly in September 1975 was felt to have made a break-through on the New International Economic Order, which the developing nations had been demanding for several years.