>But, it is unclear to me that the WB
>can be held responsible for these "failures,"
Of course it can't be held responsible in isolation; it's part - a central part - of an entire political/economic structure that produces "failure" (which is actually success from a system-maintenance point of view). Countries with weak industrial structures, if they have industries at all, are condemned to large current account deficits, which they must finance by borrowing, which worsens the c/a situation, which means more borrowing.... You can't blame the lender alone for this situation; that's imperialism for you.
>Indeed, one argument I have heard is that the real import
>of the Washington protests was to give weight to the "good guys"
>in the WB against the "bad guys" both there and in the IMF in
>the meetings and negotiations. There was a lot more talk about
>releaving poverty than has been heard for some time.
Talk, yes. The WB in particular is big on talk. They're also big on creating new faciliies - poverty reduction facilities, greenhouse gas reduction facilities, women in development facilities, etc. But it all means more debt and more debt service, despite the pretty names.
> But, the democracy issue also reemphasizes another point.
>A lot of the projects that people are complaining about were
>initiated by and strongly supported by the local governments.
>When the WB refuses to fund some big dam project of the sort
>the Soviets used to love, it is often doing so against the express
>wishes of the locals. Should the WB be the engine for enforcing
>"green growth" or whatever on unruly locals, or should it be
>shut down so that these locals just do whatever?
Which locals? The comprador junior partners of the stinking big capitalists? Remember that the Salinas years produced something like 24 new billionaires in Mexico. Those locals are happy to go along with the WB/IMF; it means big money and invitations to snazzy conferences. Displaced peasants and immiserated industrial workers might have a different point of view.
Doug