22 SOCIAL SCIENTIST development. Prolonged austerity is bound to shatter the legitimacy of political structures. Secondly, as Henry Kissinger has admitted, "The debt crisis is a svinptom of a cause of a structural crisis." The accumulation of past debt and the debt crisis itself reveal the inability of most of the Third World countries (0 drum up exports in the long run to solve the balance of payments problem, and is thus a refutation of the theory that liberalisation can serve as a cure for long term payments problems haunting these countries. In brief, the world recession is bringing about a falling off of demand for Third World exports. At the same time, the problem is further complicated by large price falls for the Third World products, the bulk of which constitutes raw materials. The result is a worsening of the terms of trade for the Third Woild countries. This takes the form of a structural crisis and must be tackled with an adjustment process that addresses itself to the key factors behind the crisis. A persisting deterioration in the balance of payments position of the Third World countries needs a means whereby an expansion of exports can be brought about whilst curtailing imports. Instead, the IMF forces these nations not to solve this problem where export earnings are inadequate, but to go in for foreign borrowing in the name of development, which only warrants more debt to pay a part of the existing debt. As most of the Third World countries are doing the same» and on an extended scale, they are being made to borrow on high interest rates, making them less and less capable of meeting their debt service commitments. Anytime now the debt bomb can explode. The dilemma facing the world economy reduces itself to who is going to bear the burdens of the crisis—the North or the South. For the North, the problem is one of avoiding a bank crash. For the South, it is a desire to avoid debt servicing and promote growth. The success of monetarism and the consequent expansion of credit in place of direct investment are an expression of the fact that the North is once again gaining at the expense of the;S^uth.