Questions for World Bank / IMF protestors

Great Debates
1

Hello there. I spent several hours on Saturday and a couple on Sunday (brr!) walking about DC talking to protestors. Unfortunately, I didn’t learn what I hoped to. Rather, in the sound-bite intensive atmosphere I got a lot of slogans, memorized rhetoric, and dodged questions. I will stop short of calling the majority of protestors that I ran into ignorant, but I did not find any that were well enough versed in the topic to adequately define what they were protesting against and what they were protesting for. So if the SDMB can withstand another thread on the protests, I’d like to post a few questions here in hopes of getting some well thought out answers.

My first question (or question group, rather) is of the goals of the protestors. What, exactly, is it that you (not that you speak for all protestors) want? Do you want to abolish the World Bank, IMF and WTO? How? Do the organizations disband voluntarily? If not, how? Have you considered a replacement for them? How would you organize said replacement? Is it that much different than the institutions as they are today, but with a degree of modification? If there is to be no replacement, how do you envision the world today without any global trading regime? Do all countries set tariffs on their own? How will this help developing nations?

My second group of questions pertains to helping out the developing world. A lot of demonstrators were championing the idea that there should be a round of debt forgiveness of ‘biblical’ proportions. What I took this to mean (again, after speaking with a number of protestors) is that the World Bank et al should cancel all of the debt currently owed it by developing nations. How, exactly, is this supposed to work? If a sum of money is being lent out over time, does the sum continue to flow to the in need country, or is the debt forgiven and then the country is shut off. Which countries would qualify for debt forgiveness? All of them? Who sets the criteria for the forgiveness? Most developing countries (the April 15th issue of The Economist has details, but being copyrighted I can’t post it here) experienced a growing economy last year. Should they be included in the forgiveness? If there is a massive round of debt forgiveness, what happens when the countries need to borrow money again next year?

Lastly, as this post is becoming a bit too large, what is it that you want the World Bank et al to do about the environment? I won’t ask any leading questions here, but would like you to consider how your answers relate to issues of national sovereignty and to your overall opinion of the role of the Western world.

Thank you for listening, I do hope that you have time to answer a few of the questions I have raised. I hope that I don’t come off as trollish or boorish here, nor that I am repeating oft posted questions. I would also hope that I am not though of as a great supporter of the institutions. I know that they have come a long way since their inception, and have a great many faults. However, I feel that reforming the institution’s practices would be a much more effective way of stimulating improvement in the developing world.

Looking forward to your comments,
Rhythmdvl

Once in a while you can get shown the light
in the strangest of places
if you look at it right…

2

I don’t think you sound “trollish”. But I think you answered your own question. You said in the first paragraph that in “the sound-bite intensive atmosphere [you] got a lot of slogans, memorized rhetoric, and dodged questions.” Well, duh. You went to a carefully organized protest/media event, and nobody seemed to know exactly why they were there, and you’re surprised?!

I do know of at least one Doper who went, and I believe that he went out of a serious conviction that world financial globalization is a Bad Thing. I don’t think he traveled all the way from Canada to D.C. just to be tear-gassed and arrested. So I would have to assume that a certain percentage of the people there were also there out of a serious conviction, etc. etc.

Generally speaking, there’s no telling what’s going to motivate people to get off the couch and join a protest. Abortion, AIDS, gay rights, you name it.

As for the rest of them, the clueless ones, I would have to assume they were there because somebody told them it would be a great party. :smiley:

“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!” - the White Queen

3

I also got the impression most of the protestors did not have a clue.

Especially it seems to me they are trying to save the poor countries but the poor countries beg to differ.

Most of them were kids but I also saw a few older people who seemed just as clueless. I rode a bus with a couple of really old ladies who went on a rant pro Saddam Hussein and anti USA that made you think they were truly senile.

4

Well, for a lot of people (and indeed, a lot of people were there for the first time), a protest is a real mindfuck. They might not have been coherent enough to tell you much.

Be that as it may, my reasons are that the World Bank and the IMF help to perpetuate poverty and subjugate third-world governments through take-this-or-starve loans which end up drowning them in debts which they can literally never pay off, for the privilege of which they are required to close down (austerity measures) or sell off most of whatever social systems were keeping their citizens even marginally afloat. The IMF/World Bank’s development projects have steamrollered over environmental and social realities without so much as a by-your-leave.

The IMF/World Bank began development programs in Rwanda. They ignored the social realities of that country by favouring one tribe over the other. The next act was the Rwandan civil war.

The IMF/World Bank are not poverty-reduction devices. They are devices to make third-world economies more open to first-world penetration, by any means necessary.

As to solutions: Probably no two protesters agree on solutions. That’s because if we split up into groups based on proposed solutions, we’d never have enough people to make a decent protest and we’d all be infighting. The aim of the protests were to stop the IMF/World Bank’s exploitation of the Third World.

Several proposals were advanced, and a given protester was likely to favour a mixture of them:

  1. make the IMF/World Bank accountable for the damage it causes;

  2. stop the use of austerity programs and unpayoffable debt;

  3. stop giving loans, instead be an organized system of wealth redistribution;

  4. demolish the IMF/World Bank entirely;

  5. demolish capitalism entirely.

  6. Cancel the interest on third-world debt;

  7. Forgive some third-world debt;

  8. forgive all third-world debt;

  9. forgive debt and make future disbursements grants instead of loans.

  10. make the IMF/World Bank accountable as to the environmental and social impacts of the projects it finances;

  11. do not specifically finance any further projects; let the citizens of third-world countries decide the path of their own development using the aforementioned grants.

Those were the main positions that I can remember hearing from various people. Anyway, it’s not very important that we don’t agree on solutions. At least we agreed on the problem, which was more urgent than finding solutions, and had less of a range of dispute.

5

I don’t know. I saw rather a large amount of citizens of third-world countries in solidarity with us.

6

IMHO poor countries are mostly f***d up by their own culture and corruption and nothing the developed countries do is going to make much difference one way or another. I would also vote we stop sending them money as it is a bottomless pit but most people feel we should try something to help.

My view is that if we send help which they are free to accept or not, we are free to attach whatever conditions we see fit. They are free to not accept them. In fact I would attach even more stringent conditions to make sure they can get out of the hole.

If they want to continue living like they did 200 years ago, they are free to do so but should not expect help. And if they want the help, they should be willing to make the effort to stand on their feet.

Look at the case of Ethiopia now. The people are starving and the government rejects the outside help while it is fighting a civil war. So what is the west to do? If we let them do it we are guilty of callousness. If we set any conditions we are guilty of imperialism etc. And if we just send the help with no conditions we are perpetuating the situation. We just can’t win, can we?

7

FYI, matt and sailor–this topic is (was) being debated at the end of this thread, too. And matt, you stated the concerns more cogently than I could have hoped to do.

8

Hello again. First off, let’s forget I mentioned anything about the protestors in the OP. Gather any large group under those circumstances and getting answers would be just as difficult. Knowing that there are SDMBers out there that were at the protests or share the protestor’s views, I turned to the board for answers.

Secondly, I hope we can take a step or two back from the rhetoric and charged language of protest literature. For example

Really doesn’t get us very far in either a debate or consensus building. It is, in essence, an ad hominem attack at the beginning of an otherwise excellent post. I understand that there the institutions need a great deal of improvement, understand that not every decision is made out of altruism, and recognize that mistakes have been made in the past (and will be made in the future… that is the nature of a mistake). But to describe them as vehicles for ‘first-world penetration, by any means necessary’ is not intellectually honest. The same goes for statements such as

The West owes a great deal to (most of) the developing world. To deny that the history and legacy of colonialism has not been one of the primary forces hampering developing nation’s economic progress is a bit naïve. What the West owes them, well, that is a different thread.
Back to the well written post by Matt_mcl. Thank you for your response so far. It was much better than what I have seen or read as yet. I’d like to address some of the points there, then ask you to return to the OP and see how you would answer some of the questions. I realize that you don’t speak for everyone who is unhappy with the institutions, but they will write their own posts. I will skip over a lot for the sake of brevity (though I am very curious as to how the IMF’s programs were the direct cause of the Rwandan civil war) but will return to any should you feel I left out an important point.

and

Accountability is essential to the achievement of any program, be it governmental or private. That, I think, we are both agreed upon. In order to do so, however, there are a few questions that must be answered.
[ul][li]How do you quantify damage done by the institutions (especially if you wish to include environmental damages)?[/li][li]How do you separate damage done by the institutions from the situation the country was already in?[/li][li]How do you separate damage caused by the institutions from the situation the country would have been in without any help?[/li][li]How do you distribute the damage between involved parties? That is, to what extent does the country’s government share in the assignment of damages? Its private sector? What about individuals who work for the institutions. Do they have a stake in the liability?[/li][li]What effect would said accountability have on private donations of aide / foreign investment?[/ul][/li]

By stopping the use of austerity programs, do you mean that the loans should be given out without any concerns for the economic policy of the recipient? Should the recipient be allowed to print as much money as they want in order to pay off the loan? If a recipient country’s economic policy runs contrary to its economic recovery, should the institutions turn a blind eye and lend / donate to said countries nonetheless? Do you mean all, most, or some of the conditions? If not all, who decides which measures to put in place?

  1. Cancel the interest on third-world debt;
  2. Forgive some third-world debt;
  3. forgive all third-world debt;
  4. forgive debt and make future disbursements grants instead of loans.

As these all involve giving as opposed to lending money, I will address them all at the same time.

Aside from the pragmatic impossibility of this (convince sailor of this and you’ll be a long way towards this goal) how would this effect recipient countries? First of all, a good portion of the funding for the institutions comes from debt repayment, no? What shape will the finances of the institutions be in should they stop receiving any stream of payment on the loans they currently float? What will happen to developing nations in ten, twenty years should they need to turn to a source of capital and the institutions no longer have the finances to supply it? Are you suggesting that a one-time grant / debt forgiveness would be enough for all developing nations to progress to first world standards? What incentive would a developing nation have to reform its economic policy if, when in need of a bailout, it knows it has access to a global pot of money?

I also urge you to address a few of the questions brought up in the OP regarding debt relief. I’d like to again point out that I am not against debt relief *per se[/I[, but don’t see blanket debt relief as any type of viable long term solution to the world’s problems.

Lastly,

I think this needs a little more explanation of your objection. Are the institutions petitioning developing nations with projects they think they need done? Or are the projects already either in the works or in the planning stages and the institutions are approached for funds? Aren’t the institutions deciding between individual nation’s plans?

I think we are in agreement that the institutions are in need of change, either completely out of existence or slight modification to their lending / operational policies. I think it is clear from the OP that I feel that the institutions should be modified to incorporate sociological and environmental concerns into their framework of operation. I again ask you to reread the OP and apply the questions asked to your ideas and thoughts about how the institutions should be changed. We all want a better world, it is how we get there that differs. And again, I thank you for listening.

Rhythmdvl

Once in a while you can get shown the light
in the strangest of places
if you look at it right…