60^th Anniversary of Notorious World Bank and IMF

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60^th Anniversary of Notorious World Bank and IMF

The IMF and World Bank Anniversary Debate - What's To Celebrate?

This month marks the 60th anniversary of the United Nations Monetary and Financial conference, generally know as the Bretton Woods conference, held in the US in July 1944, which led to the founding of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It also gave rise to what came to be known as the "Bretton Woods system", recorded in the histories of the international finance capitalists as the first example of a fully negotiated monetary order intended to govern currency relations among sovereign states.

In the last thirty years both institutions have been inseparably connected with the increasing debt burden, which faces many poorer countries, and with the Structural Adjustment Programmes that have been imposed on these countries when they have been forced to seek loans. Such programmes have generally encouraged even greater penetration of foreign capital and the impoverishment of millions of people, and have facilitated the development of a global market and an international division of labour which favours the big monopolies and financial institutions.

The representatives of 44 countries who gathered at Bretton Woods had the aim of creating institutions that declared would ensure international currency stability, economic development and post-war reconstruction. In particular they were concerned to avoid the economic chaos of the 1930s that had beset the capitalist world. Speaking of their accomplishments the British economist John Maynard Keynes, one of the main architects of the Bretton Woods system, stated: "We have had to perform at one and the same time the tasks appropriate to the economist, to the financier, to the politician, to the journalist, to the propagandist, to the lawyer, to the statesman-even, I think, to the prophet and to the soothsayer."

The institutions that were created at Bretton Woods were soon dominated by the United States, the most powerful capitalist economy following the Second World War, and to a lesser extent by the other big powers. The headquarters of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and later the other World Bank agencies and the IMF were located in Washington DC and presided over by the nominees of the US government and those of the big powers. The decision making process at both the IMF and World Bank has always been determined by the level of a country’s financial contribution and therefore by the big powers. Today the US has about 17% of the vote and Britain and the other G7 countries about 45%. Significant changes to the policies of the World Bank and IMF requires an 85% majority and therefore the US has always maintained an effective veto. Thus although initially established under the auspices of the UN, these institutions do not allow member countries equal voting rights. Both institutions have played a major role not in assisting the economic development of member countries in general, but in maintaining and exacerbating the inequalities that exist between the big powers, headed by the US, and the rest of the world.

The 60th anniversary of the Bretton Woods conference has therefore led to renewed protests throughout the world against the "Bretton Woods System" and the entire legacy of globalisation that it has assisted in creating. There are now increasing demands for a moratorium on debt, for a new global economic order based on the sovereignty of peoples and their needs, and for the creation alternative financial institutions which can assist the economic development of the majority of the world’s peoples and are answerable to them.

The World Development Movement (WDM) will be hosting Whose Rules Rule? 60 glorious or notorious years - The IMF and World Bank Anniversary debate.

Saturday 10 July 2004

17:00 - 19:00

Venue: Friends House, 173 Euston Road, London, NW1 2B

In 1944, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) were set up to manage the post-war global economy. 60 years on they have built themselves a stranglehold on poor countries.

In return for loans and debt relief, countries have been forced to obey IMF and World Bank policies such as privatisation and cutbacks in education and health. These institutions, and the rich countries who control them, knowingly make decisions that lead to increased poverty and environmental devastation on a massive scale.

Speakers include:

George Monbiot, author and journalist
Shalmali Guttal, Focus on the Global South, India
Rudolf Amenga-Etego, National Coalition Against the Privatisation of Water, Ghana and Goldman Environmental Prize Winner 2004

Mark Curtis, Director, WDM

Chair: David Loyn, Developing World Correspondent, BBC