If you've been following the news about anti-capitalist protests, you probably have heard about the "anarchists." At the anti-World Bank/IMF protests last Spring--dubbed "A16" by the activists--thousands of anarchists joined other activists in protesting the World Bank and IMF. Anarchists have been involved in actions concerning the World Bank and IMF going back through the 1990s. While most activists seek to reform the World Bank and IMF, anarchists have the ultimate goal of dismantling these two institutions of global capitalism. Anarchists will work with other reformists because even the tiniest reforms will stop the suffering of millions around the planet. But anarchists believe that tinkering with these institutions in the short term is not enough. We seek the abolition of the World Bank and IMF and we're confident that all of us will succeed.

This page provides not just an anarchist analysis of the World Bank and IMF, but also links to excellent resources that have been published by other groups.

Anarchists on the World Bank and IMF

From the Czech Republic: Why we organise against the IMF
The Czech anarchist organisation Solidarita/Organisation of Revolutionary Anarchists is working as part of INPEG, the Czech alliance organising the protests in Prague this September. In October one of their members will be speaking in Ireland about these protests. Vadim Barek, Solidarita's international secretary explains what the IMF means to workers in the Czech republic and why they are organising against the summit.

Your money or Your life: The World Bank and its actions
If you've ever owed money to a bank, you'll know it's not a pleasant experience. Depending on whether they think you're good for the money, the bank will either screw you in the short term or milk you dry over the longer haul. Banks are in the business of making money and generally they'll stop at nothing to get their way.

International Anarchist Statement on S26
The current International Monetary Fund and World Bank meeting is a symbol of the control of the international financiers and bosses of global companies over the countries of the former soviet block. This globalisation is based on the globalisation of the exploitation of workers. Capitalism is the system that ensures maximum benefits for a tiny number of the worlds people by imposing misery, joblessness, insecurity and a degraded life on all the rest of us.

The World Bank, GATT and Free Trade by Noam Chomsky
Their early role was in helping to carry through the reconstruction of the state capitalist industrial societies that had been wrecked by the Second World War. After that they shifted to what is called "development," which is often a form of controlled underdevelopment in the Third World, which means designing and supporting particular kinds of programs for the Third World. At this point we move into controversy. Their effect, and you can argue about their intention, is overwhelmingly to integrate the South, the old colonial areas, into the global society dominated by concentrated sectors of wealth within the North, the rich society.

The Emerging Global Economic Order by Noam Chomsky
If you go to the Third World, the numbers are fantastic. So for example, another UNESCO report estimated that in Africa about half-a-million children die every year simply from debt service. Not from the whole array of "reforms," just debt service. About eleven million children are estimated to die every year from easily treatable diseases. Most of them could be overcome by a couple of cents' worth of materials. But the economists tell us that to do this would be interference with the market system. It's not new. It's very reminiscent of British economists during the Irish famine in the mid-nineteenth century, when economic theory dictated that famine-struck Ireland must export food to Britain, which it did, right through the Irish famine, and should not be given food aid because that would violate the sacred principles of political economy. These principles typically have this curious property of benefiting the wealthy and harming the poor.

"The utility of free trade as a weapon against the poor is illustrated by a World Bank study on global warming, designed to "forge a consensus among economists" (of the rich men's club) in advance of the June 1992 Rio conference on global warming, New York Times business correspondent Silvia Nasar reported under the headline "Can Capitalism Save the Ozone?" (the implication being: "Yes"). Harvard economist Lawrence Summers, chief economist of the World Bank, explained that the world's environmental problems are largely "the consequence of policies that are misguided on narrow economic grounds," particularly the policies of the poor countries that "have been practically giving away oil, coal and natural gas to domestic buyers in hopes of fostering industry and keeping living costs low for urban workers" (Nasar). If the poor countries would only have the courage to resist the "extreme pressure to improve the performance of their economies" and to protect their population from starvation, then environmental problems would abate. "Creating free markets in Russia and other poor countries may do more to slow global warming than any measures that rich countries are likely to adopt in the 1990's," the World Bank concludes -- correctly, since the rich are hardly likely to pursue policies detrimental to their interests. In the small print, the consensus economists also recognize that "more effective government regulation" reduces pollution, but grinding down the poor has obvious advantages."
-- Noam Chomsky, Year 501, chapter 4

STATES OF UNREST: Resistance to IMF policies in poor countries
Since the Battle in Seattle in 1999, the media has heralded the dawn of a new movement in Europe and America, epitomised by protests aimed at the WTO, IMF and the World Bank. However, this 'new movement', portrayed by the media as students and anarchists from the rich and prosperous global north, is just the tip of the iceberg. In the global south, a far deeper and wide-ranging movement has been developing for years, largely ignored by the media. What follows is a summary of protests and demonstrations organised by the southern poor. They are aimed at policies that hurt their livelihoods and, in some cases, undermine the democratic foundations of their countries. This 'hidden' movement has a global reach and signals a deep unease at economic policies that keep the poor in poverty.
[ STATES OF UNREST | MAP | Walden Bello Looks Back on the Global Protests ]

Upcoming anti-WB/IMF Actions

October 2001
Actions against the World Bank/IMF meetings in Washington, DC, and solidarity actions around the world.

Past anti-WB/IMF Actions

A16 - April 16, 2000 - Washington, DC

S26 - September 26, 2000
Actions against the World Bank/IMF meetings in Prague, Czech Republic, and solidarity actions around the world.

See INPEG also.

Recommended Reading

BIC Policy Briefings

ZNet: World Trade Crisis

ZNet's primer on WTO, IMF, World Bank, and Activism

Creating "A16": Mobilization for Global Justice

Chomsky: Unsustainable Non Development [ZNet]

Run on the Bank by Patrick Bond [ZNet]

IMF: Advance Guard of the WTO By Vijay Prashad [ZNet]

From Melbourne to Prague: the Struggle for a Deglobalized World by Walden Bello [ZNet]

NGOs

A16 - Mobilization for Global Justice

Bank Information Center (BIC)

Corporate Watch

50 Years Is Enough

Focus on the Global South

Jubilee 2000 Coalition

People's Global Action Network

Whirled Bank Group

World Bank bonds boycott campaign