Social Justice in an Open World: The Role of the United Nations
formulate and implement their own policies. This statement must be understood in relative terms, as no country possesses full autonomy in an interdependent world, but it is nonetheless true that the political demarcation between the "developing" and the "developed" world remains firmly in place. When, to use the words attributed to the leader of a large Latin American country at the beginning of the 1990s, neoliberalism became "the only game in town", developing countries had little choice but to open their economies and societies to the dominant ideas and forces. Governments in the South were pressed to allow the free interplay of domestic and foreign economic and financial forces. Without the checks and balances provided by distributive and redistributive public policies-distribution and redistribution being interpreted in the broad sense as relating not only to income but: also to power and influence-levels of economic and social differentiation and inequality increased.
A couple of observations may provide a somewhat more nuanced picture of the apparent passivity and quasi-victimization of the developing world by external forces playing the role of the colonial powers of the past. First, a number of the Governments of developing countries were keenly interested in strategies that promised growth and development while allowing domestic power structures to remain firmly in place. That equality is an idea universally comprehensible and cherished is an illusion sometimes entertained by intellectuals of Western background. Respect for social rank and economic and political power is actually a more "natural" and certainly more widespread tendency. Justice, and social justice in particular, represents a conquest. This idea is further explored below, but the point here is that the power elites in the South were extremely receptive to the message of international advisers and consultants that increases in income differentials and social disparities were normal consequences, and even necessary conditions, of the process of capital accumulation and development. Second, a few Governments in the developing world-some with and some without socialist orientations-continued to pursue their own development strategies while also liberalizing their economies, endeavouring to strike a balance between growth with equity and economic openness and independence. Their efforts certainly deserve attention and support. In the analysis of the three types of policy stances, the focus remained on inequalities within countries. However, the ideas and approaches that aggravated domestic inequalities in the majority of developing countries were also primarily responsible for exacerbating inequalities between rich and poor nations. Integration into a global economy governed by liberal principles inevitably brings about a deepening of inequalities between the strong and the weak, at least in the short and medium run. When players of very uneven strength compete, even on an open, level and neutral playing field, the strongest will prevail. Rules ap-