The emergence of a global economic regime…

While the world was still engaged in World War Two, 44 nations led by the USA met at Bretton Woods to discuss economic plans for the post-war peace. Three regulatory institutions were envisaged: the IMF, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD, later known as the World Bank), and an International Trade Organisation (ITO), which came into being only as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), but later became the WTO. These institutions would assume the role of the state in a global market economy.

Nowadays all three institutions play roles greatly different from those agreed under the charters that set them up. Criticised for abandoning their original mandates, the Bretton Woods organisations appear to now only serve the interests of corporate globalisation. ‘Global’ has now come to mean a few thousand people clustered in a small space, controlling the lives of billions of others.

The purpose of this series is to inform the public about the formation, structure and function of the financial institutions; IMF, World Bank and Word Trade Organisation –The ‘Financial Gods’. A sense of their history, intentions and rationale will be covered. However the bulk of the programmes will cover more interesting angles such as where they get their funds from and how they are connected to each other. How political manoeuvrings by self-interested member states affect UK financial policy and many other countries around the globe. Why our government seems determined on huge cuts on spending (under the aegis of IMF policy) when in all practicality it will make little difference to the deficit at all. Reasons will be examined, challenged and argued.

To date there has been no programme concentrating specifically on the workings of these organisations, how they are connected, their methods and more importantly, how they affect our lives. →