The World Bank is a controversial organisation. It is widely viewed with suspicion, as the international economic arm of the US, in thrall to the President who is responsible for appointing the head of the Bank. Eric Toussaint gives a highly readable account of just why the World Bank has become so powerful. In short, clear chapters he shows how the bank operates, who funds it, and what it sets out to promote. The Bank's main purpose is to grant loans to all the newly independent states of the developing world, to help them on their journey to recovery after colonial occupation. In reality, the conditions imposed on these states - including enforced privatisation of all public services, and enforced neo-liberal rules on trade - mean that the Bank has become the new colonial authority in everything but name.

For as long as there have been rich nations and poor nations, debt has been a powerful force for maintaining the unequal relations between them. Treated as sacrosanct, immutable, and eternally binding, it has become the yoke of choice for imperial powers in the post-colonial world to enforce their subservience over the global south. In this ground-breaking history, renowned economist Eric Toussaint argues for a radical reversal of this balance of accounts through the repudiation of sovereign debt. Eric Toussaint, Senior Lecturer at the University of Liege, is President of Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debts, Belgium. He is the co-author of Debt, the IMF, and the World Bank, Sixty Questions, Sixty Answers.

Mainstream economists tell us that developing countries will replicate the economic achievements of the rich countries if they implement the correct "free-market"policies. But scholars and activists Toussaint and Millet demonstrate that this is patently false. Drawing on a wealth of detailed evidence, they explain how developed economies have systematically and deliberately exploited the less-developed economies by forcing them into unequal trade and political relationships. Integral to this arrangement are the international economic institutions ostensibly created to safeguard the stability of the global economy--the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank--and the imposition of massive foreign debt on poor countries. The authors explain in simple language, and ample use of graphics, the multiple contours of this exploitative system, its history, and how it continues to function in the present day.

Ultimately, Toussaint and Millet advocate cancellation of all foreign debt for developing countries and provide arguments from a number of perspectives--legal, economic, moral. Presented in an accessible and easily-referenced question and answer format, Debt, the IMF, and the World Bank is an essential tool for the global justice movement.

For as long as there have been rich nations and poor nations, debt has been a powerful force for maintaining the unequal relations between them. Treated as sacrosanct, immutable, and eternally binding, it has become the yoke of choice for imperial powers in the post-colonial world to enforce their subservience over the global south. In this ground-breaking history, renowned economist Eric Toussaint argues for a radical reversal of this balance of accounts through the repudiation of sovereign debt. Eric Toussaint, Senior Lecturer at the University of Liege, is President of Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debts, Belgium. He is the co-author of Debt, the IMF, and the World Bank, Sixty Questions, Sixty Answers.

Mainstream economists tell us that developing countries will replicate the economic achievements of the rich countries if they implement the correct "free-market"policies. But scholars and activists Toussaint and Millet demonstrate that this is patently false. Drawing on a wealth of detailed evidence, they explain how developed economies have systematically and deliberately exploited the less-developed economies by forcing them into unequal trade and political relationships. Integral to this arrangement are the international economic institutions ostensibly created to safeguard the stability of the global economy--the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank--and the imposition of massive foreign debt on poor countries. The authors explain in simple language, and ample use of graphics, the multiple contours of this exploitative system, its history, and how it continues to function in the present day. Ultimately, Toussaint and Millet advocate cancellation of all foreign debt for developing countries and provide arguments from a number of perspectives--legal, economic, moral. Presented in an accessible and easily-referenced question and answer format, Debt, the IMF, and the World Bank is an essential tool for the global justice movement.

In the last decade, neoliberal policies have created debt and global impoverishment on a massive scale. In this updated edition of his internationally recognized book, Eric Toussaint traces the origins and development of the crisis in global finance. This new edition is fully updated with new statistics to account for new developments in global financial institutions like the World Bank and IMF. Your Money or Your Life is widely considered one of the clearest and best-documented books on globalization available. Includes an extensive bibliography and notes. Eric Toussaint is president of the Committee for the Cancellation of Third World Debt and is a fellow and frequent lecturer at the International Institute for Research and Education in Amsterdam.

The huge foreign debt of developing countries has become a mechanism of domination and means of recolonization that prevents any meaningful and sustainable human development. The policies pursued by the indebted countries' governments have usually been decided by their creditors rather than by the authorities of the countries concerned. As for the initiative to lighten the debt burden, launched with much fanfare by the G7, the IMF and the World Bank under pressure from the largest ever petition in human history, it has made clear its limits. In 50 questions and answers, this book explains in a simple but precise manner how and why the debt impasse has been arrived at. Illustrated with figures, maps and tables, it details the roles of the various actors involved, the mesh in which indebted countries are caught, and the various alternatives to future indebtedness.