ABSTRACT
It is fair to say the Washington Consensus evinces some signals of decay, a very early state of fragmentation, a fraying of its force at the edges without any significant challenge to its core principles, at least among opinion leaders and policy makers in the United States. Both major political parties support the consensus wholeheartedly. With rare exceptions, such as the former chief economist of the World Bank, Joseph Stiglitz, all those with access to the media and opinion formation look upon dissenters as strayers from the fold of free trade, closet protectionists at best, and at worst proponents of a return to some dreaded world that is characterized as revanchist, reactionary, and that most damning epithet of all: populist. Nevertheless, we can mark the century’s turning as the beginning of the decline of the Washington Consensus.
