India Uncut

Many people who attack the World Bank behave as if they are attacking a pillar of capitalism and globalisation, and their criticism of one damns the others. Not so. The World Bank actually abets statist tendencies, as Jerry Rao points out in the Indian Express. He writes:

The Bank is a Keynesian child of Bretton Woods. It was set up because of the belief that private capital markets were inadequate, inefficient, insufficient or somehow improper vehicles for high-minded “development” goals. I believe that over the years the World Bank has become the sinister handmaiden of the believers in dirigisme state capitalism which passes itself off as development-friendly socialism or some such thing.

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By encouraging the growth of a gargantuan state, state agencies and the public sector, the World Bank can be accused of aiding and abetting a “Kremlin/Commissar” model of development and of crowding out private initiative which is the deeply-cherished desideratum of conservative doctrine. The World Bank’s loans encourage profligate tyrant governments of the underdeveloped world (sorry, I meant democratic socialist governments of the developing world) to build mighty dams, ugly cities, expensive white elephants of one kind or another which serve to enrich ruling politicians, bureaucrats, contractors (both of the patriotic variety and the global vultures) and consultants (the roving carpet-baggers of our age). But they certainly do not add much to the “development” of the poor citizenry of these countries who have to ultimately incur the burden of these debts.

Dead right. Rao's article is an "open letter to Paul Wolfowitz", and suggests that Wolfowitz should shut the World Bank down. Read the full thing.