Introduction: engaging critically from theory to policy and implementation

This article is a contribution to the debate over Asia's economic crisis. In particular it explores the actions and motives of one of the key actors in the Asian crash-the International Monetary Fund. The article demonstrates that the IMF does not have a monopoly of social or economic wisdom (far from it). If the Fund's neoliberal crusaders can be reined in, and alternatives explored, the crisis can offer Asia the chance to forge democratic and sustainable alternatives to the ruinous development path of recent years. If not, then ordinary Asians could come to look back on the 1970s and 1980s as a golden era. That would indeed be a tragic testament to the failings of the 'rescue packages' of 1997.