Capitalist Revolution in Latin America or Telecommunication Policy for the Information Age

Capitalist Revolution in Latin America

Author: Paul Craig Roberts

In a wide-ranging survey that illuminates both the history and present business climate of the region, Paul Craig Roberts and Karen Araujo describe the economic transformation currently taking place in Latin America. And as they do so, they also reexamine many of the prevailing orthodoxies concerning international development and the regulation of markets, and point to the success of privatization and free enterprise in Mexico, Argentina, and Chile as harbingers of the economic future for both hemispheres. The book describes the efforts of the Salinas, Pinochet, and Menem governments to combat the established interests of the local elites and the international development agencies, to privatize state industries, and to establish independent markets. In this new climate, private capitalists and entrepreneurs are feted and celebrated, and productivity has risen to levels unimagined only a few years before. But this dramatic economic turnaround, the authors show, is a mixed blessing for the United States. For if it provides us with a vast new market for our goods, it has also created a powerful new competitor for capital investment. To keep American and foreign capitalists investing in America, the government needs to make changes, which the authors outline in a provocative conclusion.

Booknews

Surveys the history and present business climate of Latin America, describing the spread of capitalism in the region and what it means to countries outside the region. Reexamines many of the prevailing orthodoxies concerning international development and the regulation of markets, showing that US aid packages hampered the growth of a free economy, and describes the efforts of various leaders to privatize state industries and establish independent markets. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Book review: Police Work or Chinese Legal Reform

Telecommunication Policy for the Information Age: From Monopoly to Competition

Author: Gerald W Brock

Gerald Brock develops a new theory of decentralized public decisionmaking and uses it to clarify the dramatic changes that have transformed the telecommunication industry from a heavily regulated monopoly to a set of market-oriented firms. He demonstrates how the decentralized decisionmaking process—whose apparent element of chaos has so often invited criticism—has actually made the United States a world leader in reforming telecommunication policy.

Booknews

Former Bureau Chief of the Federal Communications Commission Brock argues that the myriad agencies with overlapping responsibilities and authorities that now exist are exactly the structure that can set policy to help the telecommunications industry move from being heavily regulated to market-responsive during this period of rapid technological change. He develops a theory of decentralized decision making that reserves a unique and important role for the FCC, state regulatory agencies, the Department of Justice, Congress, and the federal courts. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Table of Contents:

	Acknowledgments
	Abbreviations
Pt. I	Analytical Framework	3
2	Perspectives on the Policy Process	11
3	A Model of the Decentralized Policy Process	27
4	Institutions of Telecommunication Policy	49
5	Economic Characteristics of the Telecommunication Industry	61
Pt. II	The Development of Competition
6	Competition in Terminal Equipment	79
7	Initial Long Distance Competition	102
8	Interconnection and Long Distance Competition	122
Pt. III	Structural Boundaries
9	The Divestiture	149
10	Access Charges: A Confusing Ten Billion Dollar Game	173
11	The Implementation of Access Charges	195
Pt. IV	Alternatives to the Divestiture Model
12	The Dismantling of Structural Separation	217
13	Competition in Local Service	243
14	Price Caps and Regulation Boundaries	257
15	Conclusion	287
	Notes	303
	Index	317