“The IMF stands for International Mutha Fuckas.” – Seun Kuti
Kuti about sums it up right there.
The IMF, WB, and foreign aid (USAid) are all institutions that engage in gangsterism, shakedown rackets, protectionism, naked Mafia tactics. It’s not even hidden at this point.
Both the IMF and WB were founded in the final years of European Industrial Tribal War II (aka WWII). The Global Elites knew they would not be able to hold onto their colonial territories because of the devastation WWII brought upon Western and Northern Asia (which we all absurdly call Europe).
Europe had just lost like 70million+ people in WWII, the war was essentially fought over who will head the Systems and Institutions of Global White Domination, and the US came out on top because the Russians had done the bulk of the fighting, the bulk of the dying, and suffered the bulk of the internal destruction to win the war. The US came in on the tail end of the conflict, after the Russians had done all the heavy lifting, and took the credit for stopping Nazism and Fascism….even though the US and US Elites were the earliest financiers and supporters of Nazism and Fascism, and they laid the ideological foundation for Hitler’s Eugenics and Racial Purity Ideology and Policies. But you didn’t ask about all that so we’ll get back to the key point. (But you really gotta understand colonialism, and the so-called two World Wars to understand the evolution of the World Bank, the IMF, Foreign Aid, and USAid.)
But anyway, the US came out on top during WWII because it sat out most of the fight and allowed the Russians to secure their victory for them, the other Allied and Axis forces were exhausted, bombed out, and bankrupt from years of high-tech White Tribal Warfare, and the Japanese got nuked for sticking their noses in White Tribal conflicts. All of this left the US to run the Systems and Institutions of White Domination virtually unchallenged.
The US didn’t want to engage in the traditional forms of Imperlism and Colonization like their European Brothers; the Russians, thanks to the miracles of Communism were able to rapidly recover from the ravages of war and provide a counterbalance to US Imperialism, plus the Africans, Asians, and other victims of Western Colonization had had enough of Imperial Aggression and Colonization and were taking up arms to throw the Krackas up outta their nations.
So the US did what all criminal organizations do when the get to a certain level of wealth and prestige; they “went legit,” on the surface. They stopped shooting shit out in the streets, they stopped getting their hands dirty, they started farming their killing out to contract killers and mercenaries, and, most importantly, they started laundering their money; that’s where the World Bank and IMF come in, they are the bankers and brokers for the Global Mafia of the Central Banks, and the Imperialist Powers. This didn’t always work (see: Vietnam), but it was their preferred method during the Cold War.
In the early era of colonization, you basically had the “Missionaries and the Marines.” The Missionaries could come in and try to persuade the Natives to submit and open up, if the Native resisted, the Whites would send in the big guns to kill and kill until the Natives submitted or they were exterminated. This method worked until the Natives got hold of AK47s, and there was the problem of a second option; Global Communism. Prior to WWII Communism was limited to Russia and some of the Soviet Bloc nations, but after WWII, the Natives were looking into Marxism and Communism, and seeing how it was akin to the socialism of their ancestors, and less oppressive than Capitalism. So the “Missionaries and the Marines” didn’t work as well as they used to.
The US modified the M&M Imperialism of Western Europe. They used Missionaries, Western Propaganda, Economic Hitmen, Jackals (political saboteurs), and then as a final option the Marines (military force). The Natives of the world were not ready for this devastating combination and world fell into the Cold War and Neo-Colonialism. After the Fall of the USSR, this same Imperial methodology remained in place, but the US was much less concerned about the veneer of “bringing freedom and democracy” to the savages like they were when the had the Russians to contend with.
I’m butchering the history, but you need some historical context to really understand the IMF, WB, and Aid. They were not just founded one day, they evolved from other processes.
The WB, Aid, and IMF were tools of the Economic Hitmen, their goals were to create economic dependency and debt bondage in the 3rd World. The exist to reorient the government and economies of colonized nations from serving and addressing the needs of their people to being only responsive to the needs of the Investor Classes.
They employ Hegelian Dialectics (Thesis – Antithesis – Synthesis); they manufacture a crisis, then impose a solution that best fit their economic and political interest. They also employ what B.F. Skinner called the “technology of control,” laid out in the text Beyond Freedom and Dignity. This is the tactic of allowing nations and individuals to have the illusion of freedom and dignity while denying them any real freedom and dignity. It’s like in the US where you have a million products for sale but they are all produced by a few monopolistic corporations. It’s the same way in Neo-Colonalism, you see all these damn flags and all these different nations, but they are all under the thumb of a few Elites, their polices and agendas all come from the same source.
If a 3rd World Nation refuses to accept the protection money of the WB and the SAP (structural adjustment plan) of the IMF, then the Jackals come in to assassinate their leaders and disrupt their social systems, if that fails, then the drones fly over to bomb your shit and then the troops march in to “liberate the shit outta you.” That’s what happened in Iraq, Saddam rejected the Missionaries, the Propaganda, the Economic Hitmen, and he thwarted the Jackals; so they had to mount a full scale invasion. Muammar Gaddafi was toppled by a combination of Missionaries (he fell for the okie doke and opened up to the West), Econ Hitmen, and Jackals, they didn’t need to send in the troops, they just provided minor air support to their Fascist proxies on the ground. African nations usually fall for the Missionaries and Propaganda alone, they rarely even have to send in the Econ Hitmen and Jackals in this day, but AfriCom will be there when they do need to step shit up. South America is the same way, but not for the entanglements in the Middle-East the US military would have invaded the emerging Socialist powers in SA, but they are trying to get the job done with Propaganda, Jackals, and Econ Hitmen; it’s not working too well though.
What’s even more fucked up is that the money from the WB, IMF, and Aid don’t even go to the targeted nations. These institutions will force or manipulate nations into taking money/aid and then turn around and force them to hire US or European firms and companies to do the work; so the targeted nations never really see a dime, they only absorbed the debt!
The SAPs also force nations privatize their natural resources, destroy any social safty net they constructed, and purge civil servants from the payroll. They turn Nations into Assets for the International Bankers and Investors.
The US bombed Iraq to the Stone Age, then paid Halliburton and Bechtel trillions to rebuild it, and Halliburton and Bechtel didn’t even hire Iraqi workers, they imported workers from even more devastated nations so they could pay them slave wages! All the money the US tax payers paid to rebuild Iraq went into the pockets of Bush and Obama campaign donors! That’s how fucking gangster this shit really is.
That’s how they do all over the world, the bulk of Aid, IMF, WB money goes into the pockets of the White Elites, and they hire slaves to do the shoddy work and development.
IMF and WB have been round since the 1940s and there isn’t one success story they can point to! All of the nations that adopted SAPs are worse off then before they took the “development funds” and “foreign aid.”
You can go back to Walter Rodney’s, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, or you can check out Confessions of an Economic Hitman. There are also many scholars who have good research on the modern methods of Western Imperlism like Chalmers Johnson and Michel Chossudovsky.
I might also want to check out promoters and apologist for Imperlism and Capitalism like Dambisa Moyo and Thomas Friedman; if you can wade through their Capitalistic and Free Trade BS there are insights to be gleaned from their works as well; but you need to know you shit before reading these propagandist because their shit can be confusing or seductive if you don’t.
There’s so much more to be said on the issue, but I at least I’ve provided you with a springboard for understanding the true nature of modern, no-colonial imperialism and their agencies, institutions, motivations, and methods.
I would take a full seminar to really run this shit down; but most Western Institutions have no interests in having the masses understand these issues. Even people with advanced degrees in economic, political science, history, and public policy (I have 3 of those), don’t understand these issue most of the time; but they need to be examined and understood. Thanks for the question.