Why does the IMF make aid contingent on developing nations pursuit of contractionary economic policies?

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Everyone knows that if there is underutilized productive capacity, growing the economy does not produce inflation. Yet they insist on these governments shrinking the productive size of their economies to repay debts.

Why isn't everyone pissed? (I think I explained that right.)

― Open your eyes; you can fly! (ex machina), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 20:20 (twenty years ago)

what's-his-name stiglitz took this apart, too.

i like the current us plan (surprise!) - better than what the uk's proposing.

― hstencil (hstencil), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 20:26 (twenty years ago)

Why isn't everyone pissed?

'coz it isn't a clear & glaring problem in the eyes of most people. some of 'em don't about it, some don't care, and some haven't had it presented to them correctly yet.

― kingfish, Tuesday, 19 April 2005 20:27 (twenty years ago)

what's-his-name stiglitz took this apart, too

Joseph. In "Globalization and its Discontents" he expounds on the flaws in this approach at great length.

― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 20:28 (twenty years ago)

yep! even tho he had a major hand in it!

― hstencil (hstencil), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 20:29 (twenty years ago)

I didn't know about that. I thought he was at the World Bank not the IMF. And from the book it sounds like he was critical of the IMF policies even at that time.

― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 20:30 (twenty years ago)

Because IMF are neoliberal assholes and don't believe in state-led, or even state-influenced, economics.

And yes, a lot of people both in the Third and the First World are pissed. Unfortunately they don't have that much influence on IMF.

(x-post)

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 20:30 (twenty years ago)

you may be right, o. nate - i dunno enough about how the wb and imf differentiate themselves.

Because IMF are neoliberal assholes and don't believe in state-led, or even state-influenced, economics.

not neoliberals, but assholes yes.

― hstencil (hstencil), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 20:31 (twenty years ago)

Huh? How are they not neoliberals?

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 20:32 (twenty years ago)

they aren't.

― hstencil (hstencil), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 20:33 (twenty years ago)

Well, that was a solid argument.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 20:34 (twenty years ago)

neodemocrat /= neoliberal

clinton/blair economic policies /= liberal or neoliberal in any way shape or form

― hstencil (hstencil), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 20:34 (twenty years ago)

haha I am reading Stiglitz.

― Open your eyes; you can fly! (ex machina), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 20:35 (twenty years ago)

Oh come on, IMF's structural adjustment programs are neoliberalism at it's finest. Their whole point is to reduce the size and influence of public administration and encourage "free" enterprise.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 20:38 (twenty years ago)

liberalism, neoliberalism = keynes

imf = not

― hstencil (hstencil), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 20:39 (twenty years ago)

yea, structural adjustment programs = locking 3rd world nations into unfavorable terms of trade; requirements for anti-growth policies, etc.

NOT KEYNSIAN.

― Open your eyes; you can fly! (ex machina), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 20:40 (twenty years ago)

neoliberalism is about as accurate a term as states' rights people in the us calling themselves "federalists," is what i mean.

― hstencil (hstencil), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 20:40 (twenty years ago)

huh? Clinton/Blair and neodemocrats (new democrats) have nada to do with it.

The IMF promotes neo-liberal economics. (ie free-market top-down solutions with little regard for the impact on individuals)

I think you're confused as to what neo-liberals are, Hstencil.

― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 20:40 (twenty years ago)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism

But it's not - it's neo-'classical liberalism.' Heavily libertarian. Nothing to do with the American formulation of liberal (ie Great Society liberal, New Deal liberal)

― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 20:42 (twenty years ago)

The IMF has nothing to do with "free markets". They require unfavorable terms of trade with 1st world nations.

― Open your eyes; you can fly! (ex machina), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 20:42 (twenty years ago)

i think "neoliberals" are confused as to what they are, or at least the people who call themselves that are confused.

but hey, "neoconservatives" aren't conservative, either.

anyway, imf, yeah, not so good.

― hstencil (hstencil), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 20:43 (twenty years ago)

liberalism, neoliberalism = keynes

WTF? Do we have a different dictionary? Keynes was the godfather of state-led economics (mostly used by social democrats), definitely not neoliberalism. Do Americans use these terms in a totally opposite way than Europeans?

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 20:43 (twenty years ago)

(x-post)

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 20:43 (twenty years ago)

i am talking about what should be, not what is, again. sorry.

― hstencil (hstencil), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 20:44 (twenty years ago)

yea, I think I agree that Keynes is not neoliberalism. But neither is the IMF!

― Open your eyes; you can fly! (ex machina), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 20:45 (twenty years ago)

this kinda explains more where i'm coming from:

http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/neoliberalism.html

― hstencil (hstencil), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 20:46 (twenty years ago)

'free markets' as championed and practiced throughout modern/contemporary capitalism have very little in common with the 'free market' as a concept, Jon.

― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 20:47 (twenty years ago)

ok, so neoliberalism's free markets = ability for 1st world nations to fuck others in ass with loans + bad trade agreements?

― Open your eyes; you can fly! (ex machina), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 20:53 (twenty years ago)

freedom isn't free

― hstencil (hstencil), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 20:54 (twenty years ago)

The reason why Taiwan, Korea and Japan have good economies is because all the production for America's Asian wars were done there.

― Open your eyes; you can fly! (ex machina), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 20:56 (twenty years ago)

Basically. 'Free' for those with power and money.

Assistance (govt. handouts, protection, etc.) just makes it that much easier for multinationals to get their free on.

― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 20:58 (twenty years ago)

oprah won that "free speech" case against the beef industry because she has a lot of money.

― hstencil (hstencil), Tuesday, 19 April 2005 20:59 (twenty years ago)

two years pass...

Has anyone read that Confessions of an Economic Hitman book? What do you think of it? Is there any good evidence either of Perkins' claims (aside from what any observer can see in the way it fits in with other things we know) or of the State Department's adamant denials of Perkins's legitimacy?

― Hurting 2, Thursday, 27 December 2007 23:24 (eighteen years ago)

no, i picked it up but it looked a bit hokey, somehow.

― mitya, Saturday, 29 December 2007 12:07 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah, I get an iffy feeling from it too.

― Hurting 2, Saturday, 29 December 2007 16:07 (eighteen years ago)

So, was all of the tuomas/hstencil stuff up there just confusion of language, where to tuomas, "liberalism" meant what hstencil would call "libertarianism", and to hstencil, "liberalism" meant what tuomas would call "somewhat to the left of conservatism"?

("Liberalisme" in Norwegian is close to "libertarianism", guessing Finnish may be similar.)

― anatol_merklich, Monday, 31 December 2007 01:23 (eighteen years ago)

Not really.

The way Tuomas used neoliberal is pretty much how it's used in the US as well. hstencil was arguing from a position that incorrectly thought of neoliberalism as a form of American liberalism.

― milo z, Monday, 31 December 2007 01:26 (eighteen years ago)

tuomas otm

― artdamages, Monday, 31 December 2007 19:23 (eighteen years ago)

hstencil can use his own special def of neoliberalism, but it was odd that he thought it was the standard one.

― artdamages, Monday, 31 December 2007 19:28 (eighteen years ago)

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