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> Eliminate remaining barriers to imports of the less developed countries' goods. This means not only granting preferential tariffs, as the U.S. has just done on 2,724 products, but also revising the complex regulations that in effect act as nontariff barriers to imports.
> Transfer technology and pursue research specifically suited to Fourth and Fifth World conditions. An Indian agricultural expert stresses, for instance, that his country may have less need for "miracle seeds" than for an improved oxen-driven steel hoe or an improved bullock cart.
Though these measures fall far short of a new economic order, they should nonetheless enable many Fourth World countries to achieve self-sustaining growth. For all its voluble critics, the present international economic system probably provides the most efficient allocation of the earth's labor and resources.
It is unrealistic for the Group of 77 to expect the First World voluntarily to dismantle the existing economic order and slash the living standards of its citizens. It is even questionable whether most First World electorates would tolerate a major increase in foreign aid or whether trade unions would allow unrestricted competition for goods produced by cheap labor in developing lands. In one recent survey, Americans ranked economic aid and loans to the poor no higher than 20th on a list of 23 areas in which they would like to see their tax money spent.
Thus if there is to be a useful dialogue on economic justice, the developing countries must come to understand the limits of what the First World can and will do. The poor must also understand that they need the resources of the rich—and capital, technology and markets—more than the First World requires the LDCs' raw material. Reports TIME Economics Correspondent John Berry: "There is hope in Washington that the discussions in the specialized commissions set up by this week's Paris conference will convince most LDC leaders that some of their favorite projects would hurt instead of help them. Indexing, for example, would drive some developing countries even deeper into the hole, for they are net importers of commodities." Dietrich Kebschull, of Hamburg's HWWA Institute of Economic Research, says that manufacturers in the developed countries would add the higher cost of their raw materials to the prices of the finished products. Warns Kebschull: "The commodity price increases, which at first may have been helpful to the less developed countries, would hit them badly in the second round."
A ban on synthetics would be similarly foolish, for it would impede technical progress. The poor may even be disappointed by the results achieved by new cartels. Unlike petroleum, other raw materials face tough competition from substitutes, synthetics and recycling. If bauxite becomes too costly, other materials can be used to replace aluminum; containers, for example, may be made from tin or glass instead. Moreover, as a cartel drives up the price of a commodity, at some point it becomes