Untitled Document

The Democratic Left at Princeton
Invites You to Protest the Unjust Policies of the IMF and World Bank
Washington DC, April 16, 2000

What are the IMF and World Bank?

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, as their names suggest, are international money-lending institutions. Both were created in 1944, to provide economic aid to countries devastated by WWII. Today the IMF makes loans to member nations to help them "stabilize" and "strengthen" their economies, and the World Bank provides loans and development assistance to poor countries around the world. The IMF is funded by dues collected from member nations, mostly from rich Northern countries (20% comes from the US), and the World Bank is funded by investments from private investors as well as governments.

What's wrong with them?

IMF loans come with strict conditions, known as structural adjustment policies (SAPs), and World Bank projects are designed and approved according to very similar requirements. These aid policies are supposed to foster economic development in poor countries, but they often have devastating effects for the people and the environment. These effects include:

imposing austerity measures that force poor countries to slash spending on education, health and social programs;
encouraging privatization, which transfers public assets to wealthy elites and foreign investors and creates unemployment;
stifling local industries by making it hard for local people to get loans;
destroying the savings of poor people by causing devaluation of national currencies; and
forcing governments to remove trade barriers and dismantle their regulatory mechanisms, which results in:
lower wages for local workers, bankruptcy of local corporations, and layoffs
weakening of environmental standards for the sake of economic productivity, and subsequent pollution and destruction of the environment,
appalling working conditions and human rights abuses, and suppression of union organizing.

The IMF and World Bank are run by unelected economists, and very heavily influenced by a few national governments (foremost among them the US). The WB president is always an American, and the US has veto power over the selection of a European to run the IMF. Their decisions are made behind closed doors, and there is no process of democratic oversight. They operate as if they were politically neutral, and simply following "universal laws of economics", contributing to the powerful myth that there is no alternative to their point of view, or to the current market-centered global economy. We disagree.

Why should we protest against them on April 16th?

On April 16th, the heads of these two institutions will be holding a joint meeting in Washington. Dozens of groups are planning a massive protest. This is part of a fast-growing movement against the globalization of unsustainable and unjust economic practices, which made headlines last November and December during the WTO meetings in Seattle. Tens of thousands of protesters are expected again, including large groups of students. The Princeton Democratic Left supports this protest, and wants to help make it as successful as possible.

A protest in the US sends a strong message around the world that people here are as concerned and angry about the failures of these institutions and the new global economy as those who are more directly affected in poor countries. Washington, DC is the home of the World Bank and the IMF, as well as the US Government, which has promoted the interests of banks and multinational corporations over those of the world's poor and working people. Our expression of opposition on their home turf will be particularly important.