Unholy Trinity: The IMF, World Bank and WTOZed Books Ltd., 2009 M11 16 - 298 pages Who really runs the global economy? Who benefits most from it? The answer is a triad of 'governance institutions' - The IMF, the World Bank and the WTO. Globalization massively increased the power of these institutions and they drastically affected the livelihoods of peoples across the world. Yet they operate undemocratically and aggressively promote a particular kind of neoliberal capitalism. Under the 'Washington Consensus' they proposed, poverty was to be ended by increasing inequality. This new edition of Unholy Trinity, completely updated and revised, argues that neoliberal global capitalism has now entered a period of crisis so severe that governance will become impossible. Huge incomes for a small number of super-rich people produced an unstable global economy, rife with speculation and structurally prone to crises. The IMF is in disgrace, the WTO can hardly meet anymore and the World Bank survives as a global philanthropist. Is this the end for the Unholy Trinity? |
Contents
emergence of a global economic regime | |
The International Monetary Fund | |
The World Bank | |
The World Trade Organization | |
Global financial capitalism and the crisis of governance | |
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Common terms and phrases
agricultural American Baker Plan balance of payments Bank’s bankers billion Brazil Bretton Woods Bretton Woods conference capitalist civil society Committee competition conditionality conference corporations country’s critical currency debt crisis debt relief developing countries discourse Doha Round dominant economic growth economic policies economists environment environmental exchange rates export foreign free trade Fund GATT global governance groups hegemony ibid IBRD IMF’s income increased industrial International Monetary International Monetary Fund issues Keynes Keynesian lending liberalization loans macroeconomic meeting member countries multilateral negotiations neoclassical economics neoliberal NGOs organization percent policy regime political poor countries poverty reduction president problems production programs protests PRSP reduce reform regulation result role Secretariat sector social stability structural adjustment subsidies tariff Third World Third World countries TPRB trade policy Treasury Washington Consensus workers World Bank WTO’s