The World Bank A Critical Primer

by Toussaint, Eric

• ISBN13: 9780745327143
• ISBN10: 0745327141
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-12-20
• Publisher: Pluto Press

Summary

The World Bank is a controversial organization. It is widely viewed with suspicion, as the international economic arm of the US, in thrall to the President who is responsible for appointing the head of the Bank. Eric Toussaint gives a highly readable account of just why the World Bank has become so powerful. In short, clear chapters he shows how the bank operates,who funds it, and what is sets out to promote. The Bank's main purpose is to grant loans to all newly independent states of the developing world, to help them on their journey to recovery after colonial occupation. In reality, the conditions imposed on these states-including enforced privatization of all public services, and enforced neo-liberal rules on trade-mean that the Bank has become the new colonial authority in everything but name. This is a perfect book for anyone looking for a crtitical introduction to the history of the Bank and its role in world affairs.

Author Biography

Eric Toussaint is President of the Committee for the Abolition of Third World debt (CADTM). The international network of the Committee for the Abolition of the Third World Debt (CADTM) is a constellation of associations, organisations, collectives, individuals and movements active in all corners of the world, from a wide variety of cultures, practices and horizons and united by a shared will to combat neo-liberal globalisation and counter it with “another world” based on solidarity, equality and social justice, one they are helping to create daily in their own way, locally, regionally and/or internationally.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. viii
About this book	p. ix
Abbreviations	p. xiii
Terminology	p. xv
Introduction	p. 1
The creation of the Bretton Woods institutions	p. 9
The first years of the World Bank (1946-62)	p. 17
Difficult beginnings between the UN and the World Bank	p. 30
The post-1945 context - the Marshall Plan and US bilateral aid	p. 36
A Bank under the influence	p. 43
World Bank and IMF support of dictatorships	p. 61
The World Bank and the Philippines (1946-90)	p. 73
The World Bank's support of the dictatorship in Turkey	p. 78
The World Bank in Indonesia - a textbook case of intervention	p. 82
The World Bank's theories of development	p. 94
South Korea: the miracle unmasked	p. 105
The debt trap	p. 127
The World Bank saw the debt crisis looming	p. 142
The Mexican debt crisis and the World Bank	p. 151
The World Bank and the IMF: the creditors' bailiffs	p. 160
Presidents Barber Conable and Lewis Preston (1986-95)	p. 180
James Wolfensohn switches on the charm (1995-2005)	p. 185
Debates in Washington at the start of the twenty-first century	p. 193
The World Bank's accounts	p. 205
Paul Wolfowitz, tenth World Bank president	p. 210
Structural adjustment and the Washington Consensus: are they things of the past?	p. 214
The World Bank and respect for human rights	p. 222
Time to put an end to World Bank impunity	p. 237
An indictment of the World Bank	p. 241
The World Bank Group fact sheet	p. 245
Afterword	p. 253
Glossary	p. 261
Notes to the text	p. 271
Bibliography	p. 304
Index	p. 310
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