Raw materials & foreign policy

About this book

A compendium of essays about raw material dependence on foriegn sources, vacillating between a protectionist view calling for govenmental intervention in the terms and conditions of trade, and a market based view blithely assuming any temporary problems will be solved without intervention. As the book's project director in 1974-76, I was dissatisfied with the final outcome of the book, and I suspect the Institute's chief executive, who had generally opposite views to my own, was as well, but we did not see soon enough the possibilities for structuring the book forthrightly as a debate between opposing approaches. So a certain schizoid approach remains.