I know there are a lot of qualified people at the World Bank and IMF who are experts in economics and other fields. If structural adjustment doesn work, then why are they promoting it?
The wealthy Northern countries which control the World Bank and IMF dictate the agendas of these institutions, and their interests are best served by defending the status quo. Furthermore, the Bank’s staff is currently dominated by economists who have spent their careers defending the validity of neoclassical economics, the foundation of the World Bank model of development. This orthodox view holds sacred the efficiency of free markets and private producers and the benefits of international trade and competition. Given the lack of accountability to outside parties, there is little incentive for the Bank and IMF to alter the design of structural adjustment, even when faced with mounting evidence attesting to the failure of these programs. I hear a lot about the debt crisis in the Third World and know that many of the loans are owed to commercial banks and Northern governments. People say that some or all of this debt should be canceled to give developing countries a chance to recover ec
Related Questions
- I know there are a lot of qualified people at the World Bank and IMF who are experts in economics and other fields. If structural adjustment doesn work, then why are they promoting it?
- Does anyone know any Canadian groups/petitions against the IMF, World Bank and Structural Adjustment Programs?
- What have the IMF and World Bank done to make structural adjustment more palatable?
