by Miriam Garvi
With the on-going financial crisis affecting major financial markets all over the world, even Alan Greenspan, one of Ayn Rand’s most devoted followers, has admitted to finding a flaw in his/her ideology.
A set-back for those who profess that greed will make the world a better place?
The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, however, are keeping their mantra: Liberalize, Deregulate, Privatize. Come to us for capital and we will help you reform your economies. Open up domestic markets to foreign investment, roll out the red carpet for the multinationals, remove all the brake pads in order for capital to flow freely.
To whose benefit?
Paul Wolfowitz, former World Bank director, illustrates how anybody can claim to be passionate about «helping the people who have less than one dollar a day». But these mammoth institutions are pressuring for reforms that will streamline such markets according to Western standards. And so their intention is not to empower Third World populations but to subject them to a regime where they are denied the right to exploit their own natural resources whilst being burdened with increasing debts.
Governments of Thirld World countries are not free to choose a path that they believe would be good for their people. In the past, leaders who have come in the way of foreign economic interests have had a macabre tendency to end up dead. We remember Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso, Jaime Roldó of Ecuador, Omar Torrijos of Panama. With the invisible hand of the CIA or of a former colonial power lurking in the background.
As entire populations of poorer countries find themselves eating out of the hand of the IMF and the World Bank, this is the enslavement of our times. Liberalization, deregulation, privatization have become synonymous with neo-slavery. And there are penalties to be paid for those who struggle not to be trapped in this system.
When greed threatens our future pensions or the college funds of our children, we feel compelled to react. But who will stand up for other people’s right to choose their own direction?