Sounds like Sachs is fed up with having his advice ignored. He
repeatedly called for IMF austerity programs in Eastern Europe to be
backed by debt forgiveness and large scale aid --neither of which was
forthcoming in most cases. It is worth remembering, however, that Sachs
and the IMF mostly agreed on shock therapy in which sticking it to the
working class was a central objective. Hammering down real wages, smashing
any welfare state institutions and privatization to break worker
organization were all key elements in what the IMF calls "removing
structural rigidities in labor markets." What Sachs is denouncing is
not new; only the shrillness of his denunciation has increased.
Harry
On Thu, 11 Dec 1997, Doug Henwood wrote:
> from "Power Unto Itself," an op-ed piece in the Dec 10 Financial Times, by
> Harvard shock therapist Jeffrey Sachs:
>
> "The world waits to see what the [International Monetary] Fund will demand
> of country X, assuming that the IMF has chosen the best course of action.
> The world accepts as normal the idea that crucial details of IMF programmes
> should remain confidential, even though those 'details' affect the
> well-being of millions. Staff at the Fund, meanwhile, are unaccountable for
> their decisions.
> The people most affected by these policies have little knowledge or
> input. In Korea, the IMF insisted that all presidential candidates
> immediately 'endorse' an agreement they had no part in drafting or
> negotiating - and no time to understand.
> The situation is out of hand. However useful the IMF may be to the world
> community, it defies logic to believe that a small group of 1,000
> economists on 19th Street in Washington should dictate the economic
> conditions of life to 75 developing countries [the number presently under
> an IMF program] with around 1.4bn people. These people cosntitute 57
> percent of the developing world outisde of China and India (which are not
> under IMF programmes). Since perhaps half of the IMF's professional time is
> devoted to these countries - with the rest tied up in surveillance of
> advanced countries, management, research, and other tasks - about 500 staff
> cover the 75 countries. That is an average of about seven economists per
> country.
> One might suspect that seven staffers would not be enough to get a very
> sophisticated view of what is happening. That suspicion would be right...."
>
>
.............................................................................
Harry Cleaver
Department of Economics
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas 78712-1173 USA
Phone Numbers: (hm) (512) 478-8427
(off) (512) 475-8535 Fax:(512) 471-3510
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cleaver homepage:
http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/index.html
Chiapas95 homepage:
http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/chiapas95.html
Accion Zapatista homepage:
http://www.utexas.edu/students/nave/
.............................................................................
