Washington Post on A16

[Seth Ackerman]

Brad De Long wrote:

> 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