Rev Left Radio - Western Tools of Imperial Plunder: The IMF & the World Bank

Episode Date: April 9, 2019

Greg from "In The Roots" podcast joins Breht to do a introductory examination of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.  In The Roots podcast can be found here: https://www.patreon.com/intheroots and here: https://m.soundcloud.com/intherootspod You can follow Greg on Twitter @_therealgreg_ Outro Music: The IMF by Black Wizard ----------- Our logo was made by BARB, a communist graphic design collective! You can find them on twitter or insta @Barbaradical.  Intro music by Captain Planet. Find and support his music here:  https://djcaptainplanet.bandcamp.com --------------- Rev Left Spin-Off Shows: Red Menace (hosted by Breht and Alyson Escalante): Twitter: @Red_Menace_Pod Audio: http://redmenace.libsyn.com  Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKdxX5eqQyk&t=144s Black Banner Magic (Season 2 coming soon) Twitter: @blackbannerpod http://blackbannermagic.libsyn.com Hammer and Camera (The communist Siskel and Ebert):  Twitter: @HammerCamera http://hammercamera.libsyn.com   Other Members of the Rev Left Radio Federation include: Coffee With Comrades: https://www.patreon.com/coffeewithcomrades Left Page: https://www.patreon.com/leftpage Little Red School House: http://littleredschoolhouse.libsyn.com ---- Please Rate and Review Revolutionary Left Radio on iTunes. This dramatically helps increase our reach. You can support the show financially by: Becoming a Patreon supporter (and receive access to bonus content including the Rev Left book club) here: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio - OR - making a one-time donation to the Rev Left Radio team here: paypal.me/revleft Get Rev Left Radio Merch (and genuinely support the show by doing so) here: https://www.teezily.com/stores/revleftradio --------------- This podcast is officially affiliated with The Nebraska Left Coalition, the Nebraska IWW, Socialist Rifle Association (SRA), Feed The People - Omaha, and the Marxist Center. Join the SRA here: https://www.socialistra.org/

Who are the new rulers of the world? Their empire today is greater than the British Empire ever was. This is the centre of this new empire, all within a square mile in Washington. Down the road from the White House and the US Treasury is the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. These two bodies are the agents of the richest countries on earth, especially the United States. The World Bank and the IMF were set up near the end of World War II to rebuild the economies of Europe. Later they began offering loans to poor countries, but only if they privatize their economies. and allowed Western corporations free access to their raw materials and markets.

Debt has really been used as an instrument in order for the IMF and the World Bank to get their policies implemented in many developing countries. And we're into a situation now where the poorest countries are in a cycle, a vicious cycle of poverty. They can't get out. And the kind of debt cancellation that's been given still will not allow them to get out of those poverty traps. It's not a question of debt forgiveness because actually many of the debts were incurred under pressure from the international institutions or were given in collusion with governments which weren't acting in the interests of their people.

Let me ask you, do you know the difference between Tanzania, and Goldman Sachs. Tanzania is a country that has a gross national product of 2.2 billion dollars and shares it between 25 million people. Goldman Sachs is an investment firm which has annual profits of 2.2 billion dollars and shares them among 161 partners. That's the world we're living in now.

The World Bank says its aim as to help poor people, promoting what it calls global development. It's an ingenious system, a kind of socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor. The rich get richer on running up debt, cheap labor and paying as little tax as possible. While the poor get poorer as their jobs and public services are cut back in order to pay just the interest on debt, by their governments to the World Bank. Here in Indonesia, where most people are poor, the handouts to the rich have been extraordinary, to say the least. Internal documents of the World Bank confirm

that up to a third of the bank's loans to the dictatorship of General Suharto went into the pockets of his cronies and corrupt officials. That's around $8 billion. Hello everybody, and welcome back to revolutionary left radio today we have a discussion about the international monetary fund in the world bank with a guest gregg who is at spaced out gregg on twitter we'll be talking about some of these issues and whatnot but before we get into the episode i wanted to quickly plug a fundraiser

for our organization here in omaha the nebraska left coalition i'm sure if you've been a long time listener of the show you've heard episodes where we've had on members from my my organization to talk about a lot of issues and things that we're doing. Well, this year, we are focusing on food insecurity in Omaha, and we're trying to continue to build what we already have, which is a food pantry, build new gardens, especially in food deserts around Omaha, and even build a chicken coop this spring to continue to help produce food for the community.

So the link to this donation, this little fundraiser we're doing, is going to be in the show notes. Really quickly, just from the page, it says, poverty and food insecurity in the United States are closely related there is no single face of food insecurity it impacts every community in the United States many people are in the midst of poverty hunger and despair we are dedicated to combining mutual aid and building alternative systems

that allow us to fight the systemic causes of food insecurity it all starts with building community one person at a time each one of us is a powerful component to fighting the causes of food insecurity poverty and oppression working together we can can make a difference. So if you have some extra funds laying around and you want to donate to a good cause, this is our organization. We'd really appreciate it. So again, the link to that will be in the show notes of this episode. But having said that, let's get into this wonderful episode with our comrade Greg about the IMF and the World Bank.

My name is Greg. I am 22 years old, and I recently graduated from college. I do have a degree in political science, but my formal study and what I've done the most work on is about structural adjustment policies and the IMF and World Bank and kind of this whole neoliberal and neol colonial system and how it's worked. I personally identify as an anarcho-communist, I think, would be the closest way to pin me in my political identification. And I really got into this topic when a professor of mine did a class on these topics. It was a sociology class of globalization. And he was a wonderful professor and he's actually lived with indigenous tribes down in South America. And I think that that gave me kind of a good outlet and a good insight into researching these topics. Awesome. Now before we get into the questions. You mentioned before we started recording that you're launching a new podcast. You want to talk about that? Let's talk about what the main focus of that show is, et cetera. Absolutely. My new podcast is called In The Roots. It's going to launch fairly soon if it hasn't launched

already by the time this is out. It's me and my friend Henry and we are discussing political topics and we're going to have great guests and activists on who will discuss these topics with us. It's going to be more of an informal discussion between multiple people on the left with various tendencies and just to kind of get a good perspective and good grounding on the issues that are kind of affecting our society today. And hopefully it'll be kind of a call to action or a good way to get other people interested in the topics that we're talking about. Awesome. Well, we're here at Rev. Left are here to help amplify that when it comes out. And obviously we'll link to it in the show notes of this episode so people can go and do it. As I always say, I'm a huge fan of a lot of.

different leftist voices coming to the forefront. You know, I don't view the left-wing media landscape as a competition. It should be something where we're all helping bolster one another, and everybody comes to, you know, these topics from a little different perspective, a little different life experience. So yeah, I'm really excited for that project and for all these, you know, projects coming to the to the forefront from all these different directions. It's really good, and we need that, you know, we need the institutions, the mechanisms, the networks where we can talk to ourselves. You know, we can shape our own narratives. We can exchange our own information. And so, you know, having another show come to the forefront is great and

wonderful and we're here to help it grow. But thank you. Yeah. But the topic of today's episode is the IMF, the World Bank, and Economic Imperialism. So what originally got you interested in the topic of economic imperialism and its institutions? And why do you think it's important that we understand what these institutions are and how they operate? Yeah. Well, it really was a mix of a couple things. It was this class I took, this professor who I shared a kind of interesting working relationship with and would

talk to after class a lot and really dive into these topics. And he's the one who kind of opened my eyes to kind of what even anarchism was and got me down that sort of political rabbit hole, if you will. But really, I watched a great documentary film called

Life and Debt, and it starts and kind of describes the IMF and its policies in Jamaica to some extent and it's a great film and that is really what got me interest in the IMF and I really started to throughout my college experience and even now I followed the IMF pretty thoroughly and look into these kind of global institutions and how they affect people and real people not just these kind of government institutions and these effects of global capitalism are something that is a specific interest to me and kind of the other anarchist

interests that I have, which I think will kind of show throughout this. Yeah, definitely. You know, on this show, we talk about imperialism a lot, and we do entire history episodes, you know, talking about U.S. imperialism in various countries, but the IMF and the World Bank are mechanisms by which a different, more subtle form of imperial extraction occurs. and so that's why I think it's worthwhile to understand, you know, these institutions and how they operate and, you know, what their focus is, and it feeds into this bigger picture. Imperialism isn't just, you know, invading a country or toppling a government with force.

It's also these more sneaky economic mechanisms that you use to, you know, dominate other countries, we're developing countries and poorer countries. And it's a way that America, especially, you know, puts its footprint on different continents and begins to take the wealth from those places and siphon it back to, you know, the global north, if you will. So I guess the best way to start this conversation is just to cover the basics. So, you know, some people might not even know what these institutions are. So can you please explain what the IMF and World Bank are and how they came into existence? Sure. Yeah. The IMF and World Bank were both founded at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944. This was sort of a conference

to regulate the international monetary and financial system directly following World War II. two. This was attended by representatives from all allied nations, but it was mostly dominated by the United States and United Kingdom due to kind of their economic power and the Soviets not being that invested in, I guess, what capitalism was doing. The ultimate goal of this was essentially to create a system of open markets, high employment, high corporate investment, and to ensure that loans from corporations, and mostly the United States, would be given to nations rebuilding from the war like France. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are both international or I guess you could say global financial institutions. So they both fit under this big umbrella of being a financial institution like a bank, but they're also administered internationally. So these are organizations that are globalized and they internalize a neoliberal economic ideal to the extent that they operate above the state apparatus. They've gone beyond the confines of national law and they interact with nation states in the international arena. These two organizations, the World Bank and the IMF, are symbiotic in nature. They require each other's existence to function.

So the World Bank, which is, I think, the easier of the two to understand, is actually grouping of two financial institutions, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the International Development Association. These two organizations are parts of the World Bank so that they function in effect as one organization as this World Bank. The basic idea is that the World Bank, Bank gives out loans to nation-states that use it for development in a general sense.

So this can be used for political development, physical infrastructure projects, or corporate incentive. However, there are major criticisms of the World Bank, which I'll talk about more in detail later, but broadly speaking, the World Bank can land at its discretion in implement conditions that imposes for lending. So these are certain political or developmental conditions, due to it being mostly influenced, by the U.S. and other Western powers. The World Bank generally skews these conditions in the favor of U.S. and its allies financially

and politically. The U.S. represented also have a massive veto power in the World Bank, so it really does operate like a branch of the U.S. financial system, but just with more autonomy. The World Bank is definitely a massive financial reserve and socioeconomic powerhouse, but the bulk of its power is due to the symbiotic nature with the IMF. So the IMF shares a lot of responsibilities the World Bank has, but it's more, I guess we could say it's more hands-on. The IMF states its goal is promoting trade, financial stability, and a reduction in poverty, and a massive increase in macroeconomic growth. But the IMF process is the most telling of what its actual goals are and what it actually does.

So the first step of their sort of framework is that they use a sort of surveillance apparatus. And it's not like cameras and traditional government surveillance. It's a political and economic evaluation system that decides whether certain nations should be eligible for loans. It also evaluates how nations affect the world economy, and it creates some statistical charts for future growth. So the IMF offers these loans in multiple forms. All of these have fancy names and divisions they are part of, but I'm not going to bore you with all these names. The important part is that there's three different types of loans that a nation can get. from the IMF. There are concessional loans, which is a typical loan, typical interest rate,

something that you get from a bank. But this is usually given to more wealthy nations. There's concessional loans, which are seemingly more generous. They hold off interest rates and such to be paid later. But these are given to developing nations. And then there are loans and payments that are given if there's a crisis quickly that have all sorts of stipulations. So it's like a more targeted form of a concessional loan. With all the IMF loans and conditions, this isn't just some absurd amounts of interest. This includes massive structural adjustment conditions for getting the IMF funding and loans that might be necessary at that time. So if a government doesn't meet these conditions that are set by the IMF, they don't get the funds. But the major difference

between the IMF and World Bank loans is that the IMF grants these loans based upon international payment issues, like governments can't pay their debts or trying to get out of a massive deficit. Whereas the World Bank provides loans for specific projects. So they definitely play off of each other and in many cases negotiate as one unit with governments. So these are ostensibly global international institutions, but they have neoliberal premises and sort of the ideology of neoliberalism is built into it. And furthermore, the U.S. especially, but the Western European nations more broadly have a disproportionate control. over the IMF and the World Bank. Do you think that's a fair thing to say about that? Yeah, definitely.

If you've been paying attention to Europe for the last few years, you'll be aware of the IMF, the world's financial parachute parents, the all-seeing, all-knowing and apparently bottomless pit of money for when things in your country get a bit too riety. Except some might argue that that isn't really the case. Even a fleeting glance at a history book would seem to suggest that things tend to get rather a lot worse once the IMF has rolled into town. Usually because rather than lending you the money to get you out of a tight spot like a friend or family member might, they say, sure, you can have the money, but as long as you do this list of very specific things, which is a bit more like what a sugar daddy would do. The International Monetary Fund was conceived with its formal recognition coming in late 1945.

The intended purpose of the IMF was to assist in the maintenance of economic stability and help foster growth primarily through monitoring exchange rates, consulting member states who sought guidance and providing financial support. through their corporate fund, with France being the first utilised this facet of the organisation. But to explain who they have become and what they do, I'm going to use the example of the South East African country of Malawi in the 1990s and early 2000s. Malawi was one of the countries most affected by the HIV-AIDS crisis, decimating the workforce and shortening the average life expectancy to just 36 years old. This was followed by abnormal rains in early 2001 that reduced the maize production of the country by 32%, which is massive, considering that at the time Mace was contributing just under 70% of the total food consumption.

But the government and its owners, mainly Western countries, predicted that high yields of other crops would be enough to plug the gap. Unfortunately, Malawi had also been implementing IMF imposed conditions from bailout loans in the early 90s. So when the crop predictions came up short, some of those conditions would become lethal. Firstly, the IMF had told the government to sell off its grain reserves to private companies. They say that they didn't tell them to sell all of them off, but unfettered, almost all of the reserves were sold off to private sellers who would hold onto it until they could get a high price for it down the line. They were then also told to reduce public spending,

which included subsidies for fertiliser that was vital to food production in fluctuating conditions. These two things were done in order to pay for a loan that was brokered by the IMF themselves with an interest rate of 56%. So when the crops did fail the next year, the government now had nothing to hand out to a starving population. Then, when the government tried to deal with the crisis by reversing some of the privatisation imposed on them and restarting subsidies, the IMF suspended aid, up to $47 million at the height of a famine, essentially punishing them for not conforming to the economic free market policies of the West. All and all, the numbers of famine or food shortage deaths ran into the thousands,

with many organisations, including ActionAid, who conducted an in-depth autopsy of the crisis, placing the majority of the blame on the IMF's policies for essentially removing the mechanism necessary to deal with the crisis that had been avoided before thanks to those measures. It's important to look at the case study of Malawi because it shows how in the face of completely changing conditions of famine, deaths, the IMF stayed the course of applying force.

free market conditions. Their one-size-fits-all approach to economic salvation, that completely disregarded the realities of the situation on the ground. Malawi had enough. They disregarded the IMF, started to reinstate subsidies for fertilizer and build up their grain stores again, until just two years later. Their food supplies were abundant enough to help help help both Zimbabwe and Uganda in similar situations. So what have we learnt from Malawi? Well, the IMF has learnt nothing, But the general conditions of an IMF bailout have been replicated time and time again, both before and since Malawi.

Their bailout comes on conditions that you sell off publicly owned natural resources and reserves to private companies to pay off the loan. They just lent you at an extortionate rate, whilst at the same time enforcing huge reductions in public spending, often resulting in money pouring into the top of the country, where corruption begins to take hold and currency begins moving back out of the country. devaluing it further and increasing the need for more bailouts. It's a vicious cycle, ideologically driven, and now vast waves of South America, Africa and Europe are reeling from the help given to them by the IMF, where the free market can fix everything,

if only unshackled by the need, to actually look after people. And if you disregard the system, it's going to drag you in to serve people at the top, whether you like it or... And you mentioned structural adjustments, and I do think this is important, We hear the word a lot, but I don't think a lot of people necessarily know exactly what it is. So what are structural adjustments?

And what are some examples of the West extracting wealth via structural adjustments? Yeah, structural adjustment policies are honestly the bulk of the IMF conditions that get forced on governments to get loans. This is also usually where the most abundant criticisms of the IMF come from. So structural adjustment policies follow the logic of what's known as the Washington Consensus. This includes a variety of policies that are aimed at bolstering in an economy through massive programs aimed at privatization and austerity. So specifics can include competitive exchange rates for goods, lowering prices on a nation's exports, massive privatization of state-run services and enterprise, and then massive deregulation on a large scale on all private enterprise. This also includes legal security of the rights of private property.

So that's the funding of a police force designed to protect the private property. This also includes large austerity programs, so cutting social services like health care, schools, infrastructure, etc., basically things that benefit the working classes, and the at-large ending to deficit spending. The structural adjustment policies were designed as a way to help in the short term. To, in theory, promote long-term benefit, these loans were provided by the IMF and the World Bank throughout the 1980s, and 2000s, and were meant to be repaid within two to four years. Harsh international financial penalties would also be put on nations by the IMF and World Bank if they fail to repay the loans in that time, which is what happens a majority of the time for these less developed countries that have less resources. And what happens when they're unable to pay back those loans?

What are some of the things that occurs at that point? Well, generally interest rates will then go up just mostly financial penalties or they'll use other corporate incentives to bring more corporations into the fold of these countries. And there are country examples of the IMF coming in and enforcing these structural adjustment policies. Is there anything regarding structural adjustments or the sort of regulations that they put on these loans that has to deal with the composition of the political system involved? Are there any, you know, dictates about how to run your political system and obviously there's the privatization spree and the austerity on the economic front but i was wondering if there's any explicitly political um caveats to these loans

there are and one of those is this legal security so this is a police force that is supposed to be designed to protect the rights of private property kind of like a police force you see in the united states they also enforce this sort of what they call an anti-corruption drive to liberalize the government but that's really not what happened And you'll kind of see in some country examples later that the IMF will stipulate certain governmental or in political changes, but a lot of those don't get followed through on. It's mostly these economic and social overarching issues that end up happening. And a lot of the times the political changes that come in these countries from the IMF's policies is due to countries like the United States getting involved. Sure. So you have this long history of colonialism against the global south from the global north, which results, you know, in incredible inequality in developing countries having a very hard time. A lot of times they don't have, you know, a lot of control over their own resources or anything like that. And so they go to the richer countries and they say, hey, can we get a loan to develop our country further? They say, of course, you know, but here we have some stipulations. And one of those stipulations, of course, is that you have to open up your markets. You have to open up your resources. to corporate investment. And that corporate investment often comes from the West. And that is one way that, you know, Western corporations and governments get a foothold in these developing countries and get a stranglehold, oftentimes, around the resources and wealth of that country. So it's really a difficult position for developing countries to be in. And I know we did an episode on Thomas Sankara. And one of his big things was like, you have, you have to cut the, you sever the tie between the IMF in our country, you know, Burkino Faso, because, you know, Sankara saw just have. And one of his big things was like, you have to cut the, you have to cut the, you how this worked and what this does to a country.

And he was refusing to do that. He wanted Burkina Faso to be self-sufficient and not rely on these predatory loans from the West. So there have been governments that are very aware of what these mechanisms are and whose interests they serve and try to fight against it. But it's the same way when you try to fight against U.S. hegemony anywhere on the planet. You just get attacked, you know, get sanctions on you. And oftentimes even, you know, get invaded or, you know, CIA-funded coups happen in your country, etc. And obviously Sankar was brought low by a coalition of the bourgeoisie and the Western

forces working together to get them out of power. So that's just one way that you can connect this topic up with previous topics that we've studied and get a deeper understanding. But moving on and kind of building off of that. So what happens to countries who refuse to bow to these institutions? And can you maybe give a few examples to really highlight this? Yeah. So I do know that Jamaica is a country. that has been absolutely fundamentally changed by the IMF and World Bank, even though they initially did not want to. So a bit of background before the IMF comes to the picture,

especially in Jamaica, is that Jamaica was in a debt crisis that began after they gained independence from the UK in the 1960s. So when Jamaica gained this independence from the UK, its economy was highly focused on cash crops, like coffee, bananas, sugar, and cocoa. This economy was focused on exports due to this exploitative relationship between the UK and Jamaica under colonialism. And in 1973, the world oil market ended up crashing, and imports became a lot more expensive.

So due to this export-based nature of the Jamaican economy, the economy then crashed. So during the 80s, debt payments and interest rates went up. So that by 1987, Jamaica was paying over 35% interest on debt payments and exports. So since 1987, the debt interest has never fallen in. below 20%. And since 1970, Jamaica's paid more than $19.8 billion towards loans overseas, and it has only been lent $18 billion. And the government of Jamaica said that it owed still $7.8 billion in 2015. For 20 years, the government would have had this budget surplus every year, except for the high amounts of debt interest, which is what pushes into a deficit. And that's

where we can really see the IMF's huge effect. As a cause of this debt crisis is largely due, to IMF and World Bank development policies that were focused on Jamaica. In the case of Jamaica in the 90s, the IMF called for massive cuts in spending, so the government could afford interest on loans. They also coerced the government into reducing import tariffs to increase free trade from other countries. So Jamaica was also coerced at the lowing farmer subsidies. And remember, they're focused on cash crops. So this is an agricultural society.

And in order to receive the loan, the government had to follow these policies to the and they had to accept due to the massive need for specific imports that people have to consume to survive, like medicines even. The United States government also got involved and advocated for the same policies that the IMF did, essentially due to the amount of the money that U.S.-based corporations could make in Jamaica. So throughout the 90s, the U.S.-based businesses replaced Jamaican businesses. These corporations were able to sell their products cheaper than Jamaican products due to this massive industrial capacity of the United States and its access to cheap labor across the globe. This is also the case in any foreign market.

The U.S. and a certain banana company that I'm sure all of you will see at your local supermarket if you live in the U.S. can produce bananas in Latin American countries for half the prices Jamaica can per pound, and this leads wealthy nations to trade more with other wealthy nations contributing to the cyclical nature of this commodity trade. So the corporations from developed nations that reside in developing nations, such as the case in Jamaica can pay significantly less to workers in developing nations.

This isn't limited to food production, but it's also food product selling. Your favorite golden arch fast food company was able to go into Jamaica and offer a lower price for food that source from various places around the world. So running local farmers and businesses out of business.

So many of these corporations also came on a policy that the IMF enforced and has suggested in the loan stipulation. And this is the established free trade zones in Jamaica. I know you kind of mentioned how corporations come in. And this, in effect, allows these factories to dodge local controls. So the IMF uses what they call these free trade zones as an international trading zone that's not technically part of the country that they're in. So because it's not regulated by the government, these corporations can fire people when they want, pay people what they want. They don't

have to adhere to the labor laws in, let's say, Jamaica. And they can bring cheap. labor from other nations, particularly from Southeast Asia or French-speaking Africa, who then get paid less, saving money for the corporation, but essentially removing industry and wages in the process. The argumentative line that you'll hear from the IMF and the World Bank is that when a nation allows these corporations to come into a nation with little to no taxation or penalties, they then will invest those resources in the nation that will provide jobs in the infrastructure to grow in economy. But we can look at the effects. that this has had since the 90s, especially the lack of this so-called and very coveted economic

growth. If you take a look at the World Bank's own growth statistics, between the years in 1980 and 2010, Jamaica had seen on average an under 1% growth rate per year, and the accepted goal for capitalist countries is 3%. So in effect, the economy has really remained stagnant since 1990, comparatively to the rest of the world. And in 2011, the IMF gave another loan to the Jamaican government with the condition that they cut public sector employee wages by 20%. So the government did that. The international Supreme Court found it was internationally illegal to do it. So Jamaica ended up reversing the cuts, but the IMF then just pulled off the loan and left the interest rates. So since the onset of this global financial crisis in 2008, Jamaica has seen a rise in import

tariffs with like nowhere to trade to. This has resulted in a massive increase in unemployment. From 2008 to 2013, the unemployment rose 6%. And over 20% of the government expenditure now goes to paying off just debt interest, kind of going back to that, they would be in a government surplus if it weren't for this debt interest. They've overpaid their original debts, but due to the excessive amounts have spent on debt, the government has very little to put into actual social programs and infrastructure. And food prices have risen by 15% while wages remain stagnant in some professions and really regressive and others. So the crisis in Jamaica has had a ton of socioeconomic impacts in its recent history.

The poverty rate, since the financial crisis has gone from 10% to 17.6%. The rise in poverty is also correlated, obviously, with the rise in homelessness among people in the nation. This contributes to lack of access to water and electricity. And there are entire cities in the country that are shacks that are built of pieces of metal that are just kind of strapped together. And to no one's surprise, the income inequality of the nation has risen with much of this wealth flowing to already wealthy officials or out of the nation. So these issues have also caused a ton of other problems like the 20% drop in children completing primary school or the infirm mortality rate in Jamaica, which has nearly doubled from 1992 to 2012. And they essentially blackmailed the Jamaican government into these high interest rate loans in order to open the country to, to further exploitation, international corporations are obviously also at fault because they

overtly pursue this profit at the expense of the quality of life in Jamaica. Two other examples that show this very well are Ghana and Zambia. So in Ghana, they use it as a success story. Ghana has structural adjustment had a positive effect initially, but the World Bank helped the IMF provide loans to pay back some debt that they had. and essentially what ended up happening is they were able to stabilize the overall economy during the 1980s and export more crops, export more raw materials, and all of these industries kind of culminated in this growth rate of 4% a year between 1984 and 1991. But even though the economy in Ghana grew, and there was a ton of economic development from the private industry, this just didn't translate to the rest of the economy or society. I mean, we both know that the economic and social success isn't how many dollar signs the U.S. says you have.

It's the real material benefits that people have access to, which in Ghana only foreigners and large corporations, which incidentally are almost always foreigners, have access to. The austerity programs enforced on the population from structural adjustment and the lack of social spending lead to this massive loss and the economic success for the people of Ghana, including a lot of income and job access. but also this has a negative effect on health care, education, and wealth inequality, which is hardly shocking. If we want to look at Zambia, the structural adjustment policies have had a negative effect from the beginning, and even the IMF, this is why I bring this up, has admitted to it having a negative effect. So for some background, starting in 1974, Zambia had negative growth per year in GDP due to overreliance on a copper industry, which had like low worldwide prices for a while. And so this copper industry, the IMF, decided you should double down in your copper industry

and devaluate your currency, export more copper, like it'll work. We'll give you some loans to do it. And the demand for copper didn't change, but because the price for copper kept going down and the demand didn't change and Sambia devaluated its currency, and made it so that they just made less money off of this copper. So they just owe a lot more debt to the IMF, which by 1990 exceeded 880 million U.S. dollars. Wow.

And so this has had a ton of socioeconomic effects, like the previous examples we've seen. But the austerity measures introduce cuts to much-needed social spending from the government. This massive devaluation in that total currency led to a near doubling of oil and gas prices in Zambia, which only hurts low-income earners and this trade economy.

The measures of austerity also led to lax of subsidies for farmers, which raise food prices, and it's just this domino effect that just wrecks an economy. If anyone wants another example of these structural adjustment policies, they can look at Argentina

in the 1990s and 2000s. Yeah, and so, you know, these are just a couple examples in a couple countries of how this works, but, you know, zooming out and looking at the bigger picture, you'll often hear, like, from people who, you know, don't know a lot or patriots or whatever, this idea of like, you know, if America is so evil, you know, why do people from Central and South America risk their lives and limbs to leave their countries and come to this one? Obviously, they're pursuing the American dream, blah, blah, blah. But when you look at it, when you understand how this economic imperialism works, then you understand how it's targeted at the global South and developing countries, you see that a lot of the inequality and poverty that people are fleeing in Central and South America and, you know, forcing them to risk their lives to come north is a result of this exact sort of policy so the u.s goes in these places either

with military um imperialism or economic imperialism creates poverty and inequality so that it can extract resources and wealth and siphon it back into the north and then people in those countries have less opportunities uh you know there's no social spending on social programs poverty and inequality go through the roof they like they're looking around the world where can i find a better life for my family they look north because all that wealth that should be in their own country went, you know, to the U.S., and so they flee north to try to find jobs and stuff. And then, you know, Americans will take that as evidence that America is the wonderful shining city on the hill, because why else would so many people be wanting to come into our wonderful

country, if not the American dream and providing for their families? Because, you know, their countries are so poor and backwards, you know, but our country is rich and prosperous. And, you know, that's the chauvinism that underlines a lot of this shit. But if you don't understand these things, you know, if you don't understand how economic imperialism works and what caused the poverty in South and Central America in the first place, then, you know, it doesn't, you really can't, you don't have, you have no conceptual way of understanding why people are coming up. And so you just defer to what you've been

culturally conditioned to defer to, which is, well, it's just the inherent superiority of our country. I mean, would, would you agree with that? You think that's a fair way to talk about that? Oh, absolutely. It's really clear that these structural adjustment policies are just tools of the global elite, and they don't just act on their own. It's a much larger framework that they operate within. This is simply a new form of colonialism, essentially, which I guess is what neo-colonialism is a great person that kind of came up with this idea as Kwame and Akhruma from Ghana. Once these old colonial powers lost all this control on their vast territory that they had under the boot, they wanted to regain this just strong control. And this imperialism is really

just a simple function of capitalism, which requires this imperialistic notion to operate. These powerful nations require the same underdevelopment of poor nations to operate so that they can extract resources from these poor countries and use it to better than rich countries. It's a classic example of global class conflict because it is just simple, plain exploitation. We can see this with the U.S. dominance in economies throughout the globe. This is easily noted with South America. We can also see it in the supposed decolonization of Africa. And then in this quick power exertion coming back from the UK and France.

From this post-war time to now, this sort of embodies this sociological explanation that is dependency theory, which in a very simplistic notion is the requirement of these underdevelopment of outer countries in order to maintain the core nations. And honestly, if you want to look to countries that have even 100% rejected the IMF, like Cuba, Cuba is a great example. it was the first country to leave the IMF and World Bank in 1967 and look what the U.S. has done to Cuba. International sanctions, worldwide sanctions, in fact, and has just ousted it from the international community. If you want another more contemporary example, there's Venezuela, which is a great example because in 2007, it cut its ties with the IMF. It paid back its IMF debts completely before 2007, which was five years ahead of its schedule, saving $8 million. And it did this through the nationalization of resources, which the U.S. didn't like.

So we can already see, especially today, what's happening in Venezuela from the U.S. government, especially. Yeah. Damn. I didn't know that little piece of information about Venezuela. I mean, that's just, that just says so much right there. And, you know, you mentioned neo-colonialism. And, you know, from my understanding, the difference is there is, you know, colonialism, the old style colonialism is you literally have countries from the West go and occupy the political systems of other countries in the global south. neocolonialism is a more subtle form of that where instead of having to invade and go into other countries

and dominate them in real time in their own countries you use these more subtle mechanisms to do that and the IMF and the World Bank are the primary tools of neocolonialism on our other podcast Red Menace our next episode which might be out by the time this episode airs on rev left is about imperialism Lenin's work imperialism and the title of that work is imperialism colon the highest stage of capitalism And in that, you know, Lenin really breaks down how imperialism is a form of capitalism and how, you know, capitalism needs imperialism to continue to, you know, extract wealth and build and, you know, develop and grow, et cetera. So, you know, if you want to understand the theoretical side of some of this, I'd urge people

to go check out that episode from Red Menace or other sister podcast. If the IMF is riding to the rescue of the Greek economy, why are these people so angry? For more than a year now, scenes of women. widespread Greek protests have grown commonplace. But out on the streets, the focus of their fury has increasingly been aimed at institutions like the IMF. Wherever the IMF gives aid, the measures it imposes lead to deep recessions and great unemployment. Already the problems here are great. They will become greater. The anger towards the fund isn't restricted to Greece. It's taking place right across Europe in nations at the economic periphery.

for each Euro that they are lending us, they are taking two. And so we are rejecting this plan of austerity and we are rejecting this intervention of the IMF. We don't want the IMF in here. The IMF created the situation and they're in for money and they don't care about the future. They don't care about Ireland. The problem lies in the fact that the plan put forward

to remedy the Eurozone crisis is designed to protect banks and major financial institutions first and foremost, not the taxpayers. And this plan is partially for, funded and wholly endorsed by the IMF. And what makes it worse is that these economic interventions are often justified in profoundly arrogant ways.

I understand that there may be demonstration against the IMF, people saying a very well-known IMF go home. I won't say I'm happy with that. But really, you better off with us here than with us home. But who is better off when we compare. Here, this intervention, this Eurozone remedy, is remarkably similar to the bailout program now underway in the United States. Yet again, the banks are being saved with taxpayers' money, even though those banks are

the very institutions responsible for the crisis in the first place. This way of thinking lies at the heart of the IMF criticism and has since it was founded. At the end of the Second World War, the idea. The IMF and the World Bank were set up to prevent the economic conditions which precipitated the war ever happening again. And at the time, there was no question. The only model to follow was Western liberal economics. But the past few years have demonstrated to the world the shortcomings of this system. So given its role, shouldn't the IMF be the institution at the forefront of change? That became clear when the IMF faced a crisis a few months.

ago when the director was forced to resign after becoming embroiled in a sex scandal. Many saw this as the perfect opportunity for the fund to promote a new leader from the emerging world. But the West looked at the candidates and chose one of their own. In principle, we know that in the medium term, emerging countries could have a claim for top IMF jobs. However, with the current situation in Europe, there are strong reasons for Europe to have good people ready. And because of that decision, the entire strategy towards the Greek bailout and the wider Eurozone crisis suddenly starts to make sense. History suggests that if this were happening to a poor country, the rich countries would have

voted against it. The Western powers simply have too much invested in their grand euro project to let it fail. It is much more than just a coin. It is, from my point of view, it is a political project. And maintaining that project requires the West to use the mechanisms at its disposal to maintain the system at all costs. When European leaders say that we will do everything, what is required to save the Eurozone, it is very simple. We mean it. from within the IMF itself, insists the bailout isn't really about Greece at all. It's about saving European banks exposed to Greek debt to salvage the entire Euro experiment itself.

Greece is not having an easy time. The mostly European private creditors of Greece have had an easy time. This then explains why these people are so angry. Those inside the club take care of their own. those outside the club have to pay for it all. But zooming out even further, can you talk a bit more

about the importance of understanding these institutions like the IMF and World Bank in terms of their larger connections to Western hegemony specifically? You could take this question in any direction. I know we've touched on it a little bit, but I was wondering if there's anything else you can say about that. Yeah, I think I stand by

the idea that these are tools and manifestations of this global capitalism. They really embody the idea of contemporary global capitalism and honestly neoliberalism if you want to go to its core ideology, which is simply the repackaging of classical liberalism to justify this colonialism. And as these financial institutions are global in nature and manifest themselves above the state apparatus and interact in this global arena, they are certainly affected by these powerful states. But as they serve their interests and are both essentially maintained by them, the IMF and World Bank are not the problem

themselves and I'd love to stress that point because even though I've kind of already said how problematic they are and we both have talked about that they are a symptom they're a vector they are a manifestation of the problem that is this capitalism on a global level they aren't the inherent problem itself they are vessel that extract surplus value from the underdeveloped regions of the world and they're used as an enforcement tool of this u.s. egemony and that's what these conditions of structural adjustment policies really are we can see that by these conditions how the physical reality of capitalism is actually enforced. If you want to tie it back to the ideology of neoliberalism,

it's a strict enforcement of corporatocracy and the creation of a reliance on non-governmental organizations to provide basic aid. So this would be like access to clean water. And rather than have a social or a governmental solution, it brings in these non-governmental organizations, like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to provide this sort of hopeful front

that really only serves to perpetuate this problem by giving any sort of tiny aid solution that just aids in extending the life of this dynamic. And I by no means saying that there's some conspiracy in where all these capitalists get together in a room and hash this out, but under this ideological framework that they also believe in, they're incentivized in this way to maintain their power. Yeah. And that's an important point. And I think most people understand that.

But when we're critiquing capitalism, yeah, we're not saying that there's this smoky room where, you know, the top capitalists of the world sit around and plan this stuff out. We know that capitalism is a structure and it historic sizes and it shapes people's subjectivity. And so, you know, these institutions don't have to be conspiracies.

This is a global economic system and, you know, the global north has had all these advantages for various historical and, you know, contingent reasons. And then they use that advantage to perpetuate that advantage and to dominate these weaker countries. And it's not in their interest to have

other countries challenge their hegemony to grow and develop and prosper and it's certainly not in their interest for other economic systems that are outside of capitalism like socialism for example to ever be able to build itself up and prove to the world that there's another way of doing things and so

they realize that it's not always the best to just go in and use brute force and spill blood to dominate these countries. They have to do it in more subtle ways and since this shit is so complicated, since macroeconomics is so complicated, Most people don't ever understand these things.

I don't think the average American even knows what the IMF is, much less how it works and how it perpetuates global capitalist hegemony. But it's important that we understand it so we can turn it into words that other people can understand and explain it to them and show them how this works. And the next time you hear somebody say, well, if America's so bad, why are people coming up through our border? Maybe some of the points of this interview will be in your head and you can say, well, why are they poor? And then you can get into that conversation. And, you know, that's how we make progress.

That's how we meet people where they are. That's how we educate. And that's our duty. But what is the legacy of this form of economic imperialism on countries in the global South to this day? And where is this still happening currently? Yeah. Around the world, we can always see it happening, especially today.

I already mentioned Venezuela, which is a great example and resource that people can look to. But the U.S. is, in particular, guilty of this in the Pacific, the Caribbean, South America. everywhere around the world really but one place that I really specifically encourage everyone to look up that is a perfect example of the situation that's developing now is in contemporary Ecuador unfortunately due to the nature of how rapidly this situation is going I'm not going to try and do justice here but I really encourage everyone to look that up but I think it's the most obvious impacts around the world it's had the effects on the workers obviously but the system also has had massive ramifications for indigenous communities. The standards of living in distribution of

power is abysmal in places that get assaulted by the U.S., but even within the United States to these indigenous communities. And that's part of why I mention them, is that they feel the brunt of this a lot of the time before anybody else does. The other issue that this falls under, which also ties in with this indigenous problem, is the effects on the environment, which the indigenous peoples in South America, especially in Ecuador, where large oil companies are moving in and extracting oil from the rainforests, they're losing their homes, and they're losing their way of life, and they're being forced into living in societies that they've never been a part of. And this is a more physical, real thing that we can look at. And if we want to look at Africa,

the Ebola crisis that happened was largely preventable. But these countries just lack the medical and social infrastructure that made it so that to be able to deal with this issue, which is directly a fault of the capitalist world system. Yeah. And, you know, that sort of stuff when it comes to the taking away and the stripping of indigenous lands for, you know, Western corporate profit, it's happening or it's being threatened to happen by the fascist Bolsonaro in Brazil with regards to the Amazon. He's trying to open that up to economic development and it would probably involve, you know,

Western corporate extraction and the destruction of those indigenous lands. and I know in the Philippines, the U.S. is also working to mine indigenous lands in the Philippines, and it's actually the Maoist guerrillas linking up with the indigenous people in that area to fight back against Duterte's government and Western interest on that front. So this is a developing, ongoing thing. And as long as we have capitalism, as long as the U.S. empire is intact, this shit is going to continue to happen. And it's radical leftist movements and indigenous movements that are on the forefront fighting back against this in the global south and it's worth knowing those struggles and supporting those struggles

and bringing attention to those struggles because they're some of the most important struggles on earth and so yeah it's just important to internalize that and think about that but final question what important lessons do you think we can and should draw from these realities especially in terms of how it interacts with our desire to build a world without these sorts of institutions and the domination that they help engender there's a couple layers to this question I think we could go through. And some of them we've already, I think, kind of gone through, and this is a worldwide problem.

It manifests differently around the globe, but it's not a regionalized issue. This is the same destructive force that's just affecting each area a little differently. And that is the inherent nature of capitalism. It's not something separate from capitalism. And abolishing the IMF isn't going to fix the problem. We have to attack these structures at the root.

And I think that's kind of where we can start to draw larger conclusions. And this requires an international effort among working people of the world, not specific to any one nation, because it needs to ought to be dismantled in the West as well as in these more poorer nations. Otherwise, this exploitation will continue. And I think we can really draw from these indigenous struggles. Like you mentioned in the Philippines, and another great example would be the Zapatista Army

of National Liberation in Chiappas, Mexico. it's a great way to kind of look at a structure that you can use to fight back and really remove the power that these institutions have in territory and it's incredibly important to look back at these past successes but we really need to use those to formulate a plan that we can use to create a powerful movement as soon as we can to stop this in the future yeah and you know for what it's worth when we think about socialism And, you know, you mentioned Venezuela, you mentioned Cuba.

You know, one of the big benefits of having the Soviet Union, regardless of your tendency or your thoughts on what the Soviet Union is, is that it was a real challenge to U.S. hegemony. And it pushed back on a lot of these things. And it helped, you know, give funds to smaller leftist movements. You know, Cuba was devastated when the Soviet Union collapsed because there was no longer that ability to fund it. And the U.S. embargo and the Western embargo prevented it from trading with other nations, et cetera. or so. Building up a proletarian powerhouse of some sort, I think is an essential part of the solution to this problem. Because if places like Venezuela and Cuba can turn to somebody else and have them, you know, fund them or help them grow and develop in a way that isn't exploitative,

isn't extractive, isn't predatory, you know, then those projects will be less fragile and less susceptible to U.S. toppling when the time comes for the U.S. to try to make a move on it. And so, you know, we, I really do believe that having these socialist powerhouses in the world is a good thing. And having big, powerful countries that can challenge U.S. and Western economic imperialism as well as military imperialism is an important, essential thing. And part of the big tragedy about the fall of the Soviet Union, with all of its excesses and all of its failures and all of its ugly flaws, was precisely that we lost that. And we still haven't been able to regain that in this world. and we have to have it or, you know, they will be,

capitalists will be extracting and dominating and oppressing the global south until the entire world fucking collapses if we allow it. So, yeah, thank you so much, Greg, for coming on. It's honestly been amazing because, you know, you started off as a listener, then we developed a relationship and, you know, you said you wanted to help with the show. And I said, hey, come on the show.

We can do an episode together. And here we are making it happen. And now you're launching your own show. Maybe one day I'll be a guest on that show. And so the way that these things develop, is really amazing. And I'm glad that you could come on and tackle this honestly very complex issue. I don't have a background in economics or political science like you do. So I learned a lot throughout this discussion. And I hope our listeners did as well. Before I let you go,

though, Comrade, can you let listeners know where they can learn more about anything that we've discussed today and then also where they can find you and your work online? For sure. There's a couple great resources that people can use to learn about this topic. One would be that life and dead documentary that I watched myself. It came out in 2004 and it's by a filmmaker named Stephanie Black. You should all check that out. If you want a book to read about this, the Washington Connection and Third World Fascism by Noam Chonski and Edward Herman is a good kind of example of this U.S. hegemony. And then if you want to kind of fun play on Lenin's work, Neo-Colonium, the last stage of imperialism by Kwame and Akrumah is a great work to read on the effects that it has on, especially African peoples. If you want to find me, you can hit me up on Twitter. It's at underscore, the Real Greg underscore. Got a really cool Twitter handle. And you can find me at the Minnesota Socialist Rifle Association.

I'm one of the first members of that. And then, yeah, soon my new podcast, in The Roots, which will be on SoundCloud at first. Then we'll see about going to other platforms in the future. That's awesome. Yeah, I didn't know that you were involved in the Minnesota SRA. That's dope. Shout out from the Omaha. All right. Well, thanks again for coming on. It's been a pleasure. Hopefully we can work together in the future.

For sure. Thanks for having me. say to do anything you nationalize, just be prepared to privatize. If you really want my money, devalue the currency, like Greenhead of government, institute retrenchment, to your cries for Mozium death, because I am the IMF. Look what I do Guyana and also Jamaica Now I have you trimidad have already hit you had You had so much all money Now you're running to me

But I don't mind And you know what I gave to you Once you keep in line and do as I say to do. Anything I tell you obey, like you cut public workers pay. If you really want my money, remove all the subsidies,

you're cooking one another, like in Venezuela, to your cries for mercy and death, because I am the IMF. Just as Mr. Budu, and he's going to tell you, and he's going to tell you, I ain't give a single thing I bought people suffering

For your economic ills You just swallow my bills I don't mind Any loan I'll give to you Once you keep in line And do as I say to do You got to cut your social programs You got to manage them trade unions

If you really want my money No left ideology In the United Nations What your voting patterns Because in your Christ's pharmacy and death Because I am the IMF Since the days of slavery Since the days of slavery, you built my big cities, you took your independence, thinking that you would advance, but consumer societies is what you will always be, but I don't mind.

Any loan I give to you Once you keep in line And the words I say to do But a man without a date You've got to increase the interest rates If you any want my money My motto is austerity The people could riot

Who de hell care about that Until you cry from a museum death Because I am the IMA I am the I am the I am I am the Iron Man