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"The handful of countries than have industrialized in the 20th century (Japan, Taiwan, South Korea) have taken similar paths that are very different than the po
by RobertoG 10y ago
"The handful of countries than have industrialized in the 20th century (Japan, Taiwan, South Korea) have taken similar paths that are very different than the policies suggested by the IMF and the World Bank"
That can't be stressed enough.
What has been done, by the IMF and associates, in the name of "development" have caused innumerable suffering. Of course, the people responsible of those policies not only are not challenged but generously rewarded.
- sprafa 10y agoWill they be remembered as mass murderers I wonder ? How many people have died due to IMF policy by this point ? In Portugal alone I had to watch people go out in the street and almost starve. This was in a small Catholic town, where everyone (including myself) where constantly trying to help them. But there was just almost nothing left. I was living with my parents along with my 3 brothers, now work in London. And here it's no different. Hundreds of thousands, maybe more, are homeless and perhaps even starving. For what purpose?
- varjag 10y agoThing is, IMF "advice" that you have to take is most often given along with loan package, where the recipient country is already in shambles - typically due to policies of their own. I see IMF as a convenient externalization of responsibility by national politicians and people who voted for them and their disastrous policies. If the bottom falls out of your country, it's not necessarily someone's nefarious plot.
- RobertoG 10y agoThing is, that's not true. The goal is profiting from those countries or, as in the case of Europe now, to force policies more 'pro-business' or, in other words, less 'pro-people'. We are talking about disastrous policies imposed from the outside with, yes, normally, the compliance of a local corrupt establishment. I recommend reading this: https://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/209/42969.html https://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/209/4...
- varjag 10y agoI beg to disagree. The advice tends to be "pro-market" and less "pro-populist" by necessity, since IMF is concerned with a living chance of seeing its money back and less so with being popular on elections in recipient country. Then there's always that option of not taking IMF money.
- RobertoG 10y ago"Then there's always that option of not taking IMF money." Is there? Who have this option when the people in power is going to profit immensely. The IMF is an institution that have expired its utility. It made sense when there was fixed exchange rate between countries. Since then, it has mutated to an instrument to impose policies that doesn't work. That's a fact. We could, I suppose, argue about the reason of why those policies are imposed and not others. It could be profit or it could be ideological but we can't argue about the results in contraposition to the results of countries that don't follow that development path.
- ptaipale 10y agoIf IMF has expired its utility, then the option of not taking IMF money very obviously is there and we can concentrate on some other ideas. What might they be?
- RobertoG 10y agoFollow the development path of Japan, South Korea etc? Because that was what the discussion was about in this thread, or not? I mean, why is not the IMF advising that?
- varjag 10y agoWas South Korea ever in need of an IMF loan to make the ends meet? And mind you it's development path took decades through a fairly unpleasant dictatorship. Is this really better than IMF aid, do you really advocate that?