Students receive crash course on IMF

International Monetary Fund and World Bank, look out. What happened to the World Trade Organization summit in Seattle last year is expected to re-occur at the IMF and World Bank meetings in Washington, D.C., this weekend More than 50 students attended a discussion at Civic House Tuesday night to hear why thousands of students, some from Penn, will be descending upon the nation's capital in protest. The discussion, or IMF Teach-In, was sponsored by Groove Phi Groove, Penn Students Against Sweatshops and Civic House. History Professor David Ludden began the discussion by giving a broad history of the IMF and the World Bank. He highlighted both the goals and the shortcomings of these international financial institutions. The IMF, formed in 1946, began as "the lender of last resort for countries in financial crisis," Ludden said. Along with the World Bank, it was intended to promote a "flourishing environment for international investment of private capital." Both institutions exist largely to enable needy countries to receive financial capital from private investors. But what was originally intended to fund post-World War II recovery has been transformed into a multilateral force in effecting policy change in debtor countries, according to Ludden. The IMF now has to "get into governments and alter the way governments work," he said. One major problem with the IMF's operations Ludden said, is the issue of structural adjustment. In the 1970s, saddled by debt, many developing countries found themselves dependent on international finance for survival. These countries began to look to debt-driven development to solve their problems. "Businesses do not invest in infrastructure," Ludden said. "They depend on government investment in infrastructure." The IMF, in a position to loan this needed capital, then dictated the ways in which debtor nations had to change their budgets. Ludden left Civic House after his 20-minute talk. Exiting audience members who left with the professor said they were pleased with his historical viewpoint. "I thought that it was about as unbiased as one could make it," College sophomore Alice Pink said. But after Ludden's exit, the discussion quickly changed to a more partisan viewpoint. College senior Miriam Joffe-Block, who participated in the Seattle protests several months ago and is a leader of Penn Students Against Sweatshops, took the floor to discuss the workings of the IMF. She concluded that the IMF is doing more harm than good. "The IMF is forcing a market economy and integration into the global economy much, much faster than happened for the U.S.," read one of the visuals that she showed. But audience member Alex Robinson, a College senior, pointedly asked Joffe-Block after her presentation, "Instead of protesting against the IMF, why aren't you pushing for another multilateral body?" Emily Nepon, a member of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, responded in her presentation that one cannot afford to be objective. "People are fucking dying because of changes being made in their countries by the IMF and the World Bank," Nepon said. Nepon was referring to the fact that the IMF has, in some cases, dictated the release of price protections sponsored by debtor nations. This could then limit the availability of food to poor people.

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