Marketize, privatize, deregulate: the Washington Consensus mantra dominated policy in the developing world for a quarter century. For most the recipe was a disaster.

Today, alternatives are being discussed, and in the process many scholars and policy makers are casting a fresh eye on the legacy of twentieth-century national development models.

Given the terrible record of neoliberalism — in terms of human suffering and lackluster economic growth — this reconsideration is something to celebrate, but hindsight is often tinged with nostalgia, and risks romanticizing the pre-neoliberal period. The national bourgeoisies empowered in newly independent states were no friends to workers and peasants, and in most countries failed to bring sustained growth and development.