Nepal, May 21 -- In an apocryphal story, Indian economist and Marxist scholar Ashok Mitra (1928-2018) narrates the career trajectory of a spoiled brat of one of the anti-communist caudillos of the 1950s. Once some of these military princelings from Paraguay, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, or Venezuela graduated from nondescript colleges in the United States, they would approach the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC for a sinecure to stay away from political uncertainties in their home countries.

The Bretton Woods sisters had little use for the entitled offsprings of the ruling juntas of banana republics. The Bank or Fund officials would take up the matter with the State Department, who in turn would spea...