> Even with the conditions, the fact that the Korean government went
> for the deal the IMF offered suggests that it was a good deal for
> Korea--a much better deal than no conditionality and no IMF loan
> would have been.
>
> Shouldn't the Koreans be allowed to choose whether they want to deal
> with the IMF or not, rather than having you decide it for them by
> zeroing it out? If there is such a fundamental conflict between the
> IMF's policy and the interests of the countries it lends to, why
> haven't borrowing governments realized it?
>
>
But Korea didn't have much of a choice, did it? What you call a "choice," others -- including much of Korea's polity and certainly its unions -- have called blackmail. Indeed, the main Korean union, the KCTU, has, I believe, endorsed the abolitionist position on the IMF. And the Korean business and political establishment bitterly resented the conditionalities.
Yet, surreally, you accuse those of us who support the Korean unions' opposition to the IMF of denying the Koreans their free choice -- the freedom to choose between the bitterly resented dictates of the IMF and default, accompanied by the possibility of complete financial breakdown, political upheaval, dislocation, etc.
The point of the anti-IMF movements is to give Koreans a better set of choices. You feel that a better set of choices can be provided by a slightly modified IMF. But, again, this question hinges on whether the interests of the IMF's shareholders are in harmony with those of its borrowers. And we've seen some pretty unequivocal testimony from, to give only two examples, Joseph Stiglitz and Jagdish Bhaghwati, who say those interests are in conflict and this conflict influences the IMF's policies.
As for your question -- why, if the IMF's interests conflict with its borrowers', the borrowers haven't realized it yet -- you're forgetting something: They have realized it. Let's recall that the Group of 77 met in Havana last week and issued a statement strongly supporting the A16 protests, saying the IMF "stabilizes nothing but poverty."
It's amazing to me that a social democrat like yourself would invoke such a radically Nozick-like libertarian argument: The poor countries must support the IMF since they have "chosen" to accept its loans rather than face the prospect of disaster and upheaval. Social democrats usually acknowledge the fact that the poor face forced choices which should be remedied by improving their options, with things like unions, to name one example, rather than hailing the "free choice" of workers to earn miserable wages.
When did you debate Weisbrot? Is there a transcript?
Seth