access to foreign technology and to regulate restrictive business prac-
tices. The generalized system of preferences, an agreement that fosters
the export of industrial goods produced in developing countries,
remains the only lasting outcome of these various reform projects.
In the financial sphere, the left concentrated most of its attention on
development assistance. It fought for an increase in the volume of aid
and for an improvement in the conditions of aid allocation. One of
the left’s few diplomatic victories, achieved in 1970 through a UN
resolution, was to legitimize the idea that the rich countries should
devote 0.7 percent of their GNP to development cooperation. Non-
governmental organizations of the North and governments of the
South also strove to get aid to respond more effectively to basic needs
such as food, employment, and education, and to increase the multi-
lateral component of aid funding. Aside from the overriding aid issue,
the IMF was invited to adopt policies that were more expansionist and
less geared to controlling inflation.
As for institutional matters, progressives felt that the economic
circumstances of the developing countries could not improve without
a massive makeover of international governance. They regarded the
Bretton Woods institutions as anti-democratic and demanded a strength-
ening of the development role of the UN system. In addition to
supporting the creation of a number of new UN bodies, the left also
called for the merger of GATT and UNCTAD so as to place the goal
of development at the heart of the trade regime. Overall, its strategy
was largely centered on the power of law and diplomacy. This approach
proved to be idealistic, for subsequent events made clear that majority
rule rarely had any impact on the workings of the international order.
This overview would be incomplete if, in conclusion, it did not
mention the left’s silence during the postwar years when it came to the
political and economic responsibility of Southern elites in relation to
underdevelopment. The authoritarianism and corruption of many
governments of the South were taboo subjects and remained largely
unexamined. Vehemently denounced by the conservatives, this silence
facilitated the right’s offensive in the 1980s.
Conclusion
In many ways, the age of universality was a golden age for the left.
The development of the mixed economy, the adoption of demand
The age of universality (1945–1980) 135