World Bank Wobblies

Students who protested at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund a couple of weeks ago may not be on the side they wanted to join. On Friday, Oct. 19th, protestors from George Washington University shouted “Resist! Destroy the Capitalist!,” according to the GW Hatchet Online.

Their enthusiasm may be misplaced. While markedly more free market than another multilateral institution—the United Nations—the World Bank and the IMF are hardly engines of capitalism.

In contrast to the UN, both agencies admit that government-to-government aid is a failure. Unfortunately, in trying to implement that shift, both institutions have a major obstacle: They have no idea of what free markets to foster or how.

Thus, their major moves in this direction involve giving loans to “businesses” run by cabinet ministers in third-world governments. Although it might be more of a market reform than the oil-for-food scandal, privatization it ain’t.

Malcolm A. Kline is the executive director of Accuracy in Academia.