The first paragraph of this book is an excellent summary of what follows: "Anyone can criticize, and when it comes to foreign aid, everyone does. .... But few critics have been willing to see foreign aid for what it is - a sophisticated instrument of control. This book attempts to do that."
Weissman is unabashed that his view belong firmly on the side of the left-liberal, but his main contribution is an outlook and criticism of foreign aid that is not based on the usual delineation of the left- and the right- in economics. Rather, Weissman examines the political motives behind the establishment of the foreign aid apparatus (using my own term here), and goes a step further by examining how these motives find their way into implementation.
Another point that Weissman made is that politics are meaningless without considering corporate support, and vice-versa. What happens is a system in which corporations support foreign aid when and because it is done in such way that they are the biggest beneficiaries. Although it is outdated, the figure on page 31 is an excellent examination of this trend: AID-financed commodity expenditures purchased in the US (versus abroad) goes from roughly 42% in 1960 up to roughly 98% in 1970.
In making his point, Weissman reviewed the history of the various instruments of US foreign aid: the world bank, the IMF, the treaties, and other humanitarian efforts. He also gave a few examples of how these assets were harnessed, for example in South Vietnam and in Indonesia.
Although I enjoyed this book, I find it hard to recommend it to everybody because of the large number of organizations and people who are mentioned in this book. After a while they just get really unwieldy and confusing, and I believe that with a different referencing and citation strategy this book can be made significantly less wieldy.
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