The Globalization of Poverty: Impacts of IMF & World Bank Reforms (Paperback)

by Michel Chossudovsky (Author) "Since the early 1980s, the "macro-economic stabilization" and structural adjustment programs imposed by the IMF and the World Bank on developing countries (as a condition..." (more)
Key Phrases: World Bank, Bretton Woods, Wall Street (more...)

Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: Common Courage Press (June 2002)
• ISBN-10: 1567512003
• ISBN-13: 978-1567512007
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #6,879,805 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

71 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Road to Serfdom, January 10, 2005

By	Samurai - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order (Paperback)

I was originally born in Uganda and I can assure you that Africans have always been suspicious of the so-called "aid" they receive since it almost always comes after a crisis that they can't quite explain (like how did a bunch of poor, illiterate preteens get the money to buy those fancy weapons, or why won't aid agencies buy food from the local farmers and distribute THAT).

Suspicions and rumors are insufficient to counter what appears, on the surface, to be international generosity. That is why I am grateful for Chossudosky's contrarian masterwork. It confirms the fears and suspicions regarding a return to colonialism and economic slavery. The fact that Chossudosky was willing to put his career on the line to write this hard-hitting book is worthy of our attention. He shows, without a shadow of a doubt, that there is a deliberate and systematic campaign of "economic genocide" against Africa and all other resource-rich regions. Neoliberalism have mastered the British colonial-era double-speak of "liberty", "democracy", "markets", etc. "Market liberalization" is nothing more than armed robbery. And "investment" is really nothing more than "asset stripping". The Adam Smith phraseology of free-trade and free markets is used, much like their British predecessors, to recolonize the world. Chossudosky shows how the "Washington Consesus" has embarked on a foreign policy strategy of economic sabotage and "strangulation." As Kissinger famously ordered, in the now declassified National Security Memorandum 200, Africans should be kept from becoming consumers of their own raw materials.

Chossudosky does an enormous favors to us neophytes by decoding the neoclassical econo-babble. His brilliant deconstruction of IMF structural adjustment policies is worth the price of this book alone. But he goes beyond that. He shows how nations can be brought to their knees through currency devaluations and speculative attacks. The whole cynical process of creating the crisis then blaming it on the victims, i.e. the "Asian" Crisis which is in fact an American Crisis, or the excuse used to maintain Odious Debt on impoverished nations: "their corrupt leaders are to blame for the Odious Debt". Yes but those "corrupt" leaders were trained at American military bases (much like the 9/11 hijackers), and are killing us with American made weapons (thanks again Kissinger). Besides, everytimes Africans (or Latin Americans) try to put a reformer or socialist democrat in power, he develops a nasty habit of being assisinated.

This book will make you angry at how long and how often you've been lied to. Everything you thought you knew about economics will be tested as the Machiavellian machinations of international creditors, grain companies, and financial "investors" is revealed in page after riveting page. I also recommend Michael Hudson's Super Imperialism and Horowitz' Emerging Viruses. If it's not out of print then get The Merchants of Grain. Some publishing companies are refusing to publish some of these books because of their controvesial nature so get them before they're made "out of print".

34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "There are none so blind . . . ", March 29, 2004

By	Stephen A. Haines (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order (Paperback)

With the North American governments and their media flacks noisily championing "economic liberalisation", dissenting voices are muted. The voices of those most directly affected by "globalisation" are fainter yet. Michel Chossudovsky attempts to overcome the raucous proponents of "international free trade" with an examination of just what it does and how it impacts civil societies. The picture he provides isn't pleasant. However, turning away will not cause it to fade from lack of our attention. In fact, reading this book is an eye-opening, if not eyebrow raising experience.

Among the rare critics of globalization Chossudovsky has "on-site" credentials beyond his academic base. He's been on the scene of several nations subjected to International Monetary Fund and World Bank policies. He examines the results of these and other international financial agencies' policies. From Chile through Rwanda to Somlia and Korea, he shows how a new form of warfare is under way. Conquest no longer requires bullets to occupy a nation nor suppress a people. Conquerers now wield position papers, American dollars or Euros and trade impositions. Surrender agreements come in the form of "conditions" accompanying loans and investments. These dicta result in the stripping away of social programmes, alienation of subsistence farm holdings and displacement of vast numbers. These people, deprived of income, traditions and opportunity have become a new breed. They are the hopeless poor for which no amount of "aid" can provide succour.

As he demonstrates repeatedly, the mechanism is simple. The formation of the IMF gave financiers, chiefly North American, a cudgel to change governments, force farmers and pastoralists to convert to cash crop economies, and reduce or eliminate government services. The initial steps were instituted by the Bretton Woods conferences designed to restore nations devastated by World War II. Private financial institutions imposed conditions on loans granted to recovering countries. "Recovering" countries rapidly expanded into "developing" countries as these institutions recognised the value of cheap labour in them. Accepting "foreign investment" led to indebtedness difficult to repay. Defaulting was unacceptable to both borrower and lender, leading to new rounds of loans. These, however, rarely reached the borrowing nation since the new funds were set against the older debt. "Servicing the debt" meant imposition of stringent conditions, ranging from privatisation of services, amalgamation of small land holdings to produce crops to be purchased cheaply, but sold at inflated prices. The consumers of these goods are you and your neighbours.

Each of the nations Chossudovsky examines suffers the same schedule of "structural adjustment programmes" imposed by the IMF. These SAPs outline the changes a nation must endure to receive the "benefits" of globalization. Restrictions on outside investment must be eliminated, with the concomitant privatisation of state-owned facilities and services. Where workers aren't laid off, their wages are frozen or reduced. Local currencies must be adjusted to American dollars, which has the impact of intense inflation spirals almost overnight. The result is a populace under increasing pressure, marginal or famine-stricken and powerless. Civil unrest isn't an option, since disruption brings reprisals - often, of course, the withdrawal of investment, failure to renew loan guarantees or simply real military action.

Although the repetitive nature of the manipulations of the financial institutions on national sovereignty leads Chossudovsky to some redundancy, the reader should understand we are dealing with a global crisis. "Bitter medicine" and "bitter irony" recur, because the circumstances he describes are redundant. An imposing and sometimes intimidating account, he is careful to shift the responsibility to institutions rather than consumers. It is, however, the developed country consumer that provides motivation for many levels of the problem. Chossudovsky's analysis is thorough, well-founded and expressive. He shows why social unrest in "developing" countries is the result of imposed conditions, not unstable populations and environments. That he offers little in the way of solutions for the predicament the world now suffers is only testimony to the immensity of the task ahead. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A rigged free market system, March 29, 2006

By	Luc REYNAERT (Beernem, Belgium) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order (Paperback)

M. Chossudovsky attacks head on the New World Order imposed by the World Bank (WB0), the IMF and the WTO, calling their economic 'reforms' enforced on countries in distress not less than genocides.

Their 'free market' system is rigged. The WTO agreements grant entrenched rights to the world's largest financial and industrial conglomerates, derogating the ability of national governments to regulate their economies. The IMF programs enforce governments to privatize big chunks of their national economy, liberalize their markets and downsize social provisions (education, health, social security).
Their 'free' market system is synonym of human poverty, destruction of the natural environment, social apartheid, racism and ethnic strife, undermining of women's rights, economic dislocations, forced displacements, landless farmers, shuttered factories and jobless workers.
More, he accuses the IMF of supporting the appropriation of global wealth by speculators through manipulation of currency and commodity markets. It even manipulates itself its economic statistics in order to show that its policies work. Finally, it cooperates with warmongerers and 'peace keepers'.

He illustrates his verdicts with a host of examples.
Somalia: the entire social fabric of the pastoralist economy was undone through duty-free beef and dairy products from the EU.
Rwanda: the restructuring of the agricultural system precipitated the population into destitution, leading to a genocide.
Ethiopia: the Structural Adjustment Programme caused starvation.
Bangladesh: a devaluation and price liberalization exacerbated famine. Deregulation of the grain market meant dumping of US grain surpluses.
Brazil: enhancement of social polarization by supporting the land-owning class.
Peru: after liberalization, the price of bread increased more than 12 times.
Russia: helping the oligarchs.
India (Andhra Pradesh): repeal of minimum wages and support of caste exploitation
Yugoslavia: serving the strategic interests of Germany and the US by cutting the financial arteries between Belgrade and the republics.
Korea, Thailand, Indonesia: the vaults of the central banks (100 billion $) were pillaged by international speculators. The bail-outs of those countries were underwritten and guaranteed by the same Wall Street banks involved in the speculative assaults.

The author proposes a solution which will be extremely difficult to implement in our actual world, where media and governments are controlled by the powerful: democratization of the economic system and ownership structures, disarming of speculation, redistribution of income and wealth and rebuilding the Welfare State.

Michel Chossudovsky's book constitutes a devastating denunciation of an inhuman system sold by economic strangulating wolves clad in sheepskins.
It confirms the forceful analysis of globalization by Joseph Stiglitz.

A must read.

I also recommend a voice from the South: Walden Bello.