Word: hiid
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PRESIDENT BOK defended his nomination of Arnold C. Harberger to head the Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID) last month at Lowell House on the pinnacles of academic freedom. The strident voices of politicized students who objected to Harberger's ties with the oppressive Pinochet government in Chile can not sway him, he argued; that would lower academic appointments from their eminence and subject them to the shifting tides of the external political environment. Attacks on Harberger today could then turn into attacks on left-wing appointments if the national mood suddenly shifted to the far right...
...really raises two separate issues: whether politics should affect the decision to appoint Harberger to the Economics Department, and whether they matter in his appointment to head HIID...
...defense of nominating Harberger to head HIID falls apart on a much more obvious point. Whatever the arguments, pro or con, about academic freedom, the directorship of HIID is not an academic appointment. The HIID directly affects government policies in Third World nations; its work is unavoidably political. Bok could never defend appointing a Nazi to head HIID. Yet he persists in defending Harberger, who, though no Nazi, admits his economic policies work best under "strong governments"--which in practice has meant repressive military dictatorships. It's hard to believe such issues are mere academics...
...HIID (formerly Development Advisory Services) has existed for many years. It has assisted and advised many developing countries on how to develop their economies "the right way." The assistance and advice that have been given are no different than the assistance and advice that have been given by Professor Harberger to the military regime in Chile. The results are also more or less the same. Two old clients of HIID, Pakistan and Indonesia, ended up with the same economic structure as Chile, along with military repression. As a matter of fact, the military junta in Chile is following the Indonesian...
...point is that the campaign against Professor Harberger should not stop short on whether Harberger should be the new director or not. As the discussion on this issue last Sunday (February 17) has shown, it is the basic concept of economic development followed by HIID that should be questioned, not simply the person who is going to be the director. With its present concept of development, HIID has been doing more harm than good for the people whose countries it "helps...