The Extended European Community and the Less Developed Countries in Asia. A Comment

Abstract

I have been asked to give some comments on Dr. Terfloth’s article “The Extended European Community and the Less Developed Countries in Asia”. It is not quite obvious to me that this is an invitation to a meaningful dialogue since the distance between his views and mine is considerable, even a discontinuity. This is not necessarily because there is a factual disagreement of any significance. Rather, it is a difference in perspective, in “social cosmology” to use a high sounding term. For instance, what I would refer to as “exploitation” Dr. Terfloth might possibly call “cooperation” or even “development” and the reference might be to the same empirical phenomena. The difference would, inter alia, be located in an entirely different view of the effects of certain patterns instituted by the European Community, the EC.