Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Two key creations of the conference remain in the headlines today—the World Bank and the Interna-
tional Monetary Fund, or IMF. (But the quick answer is, “No, don't look for a World Bank ATM on the
corner.”)
The World Bank is now made up of 187 member countries whose mission is to help poor nations de-
velop their economies and improve social conditions. Founded in 1944, it is headquartered in Washington
and has more than one hundred offices worldwide. Since its inception, World Bank tradition holds that the
United State selects the organization's president and Europe chooses the head of the IMF. But developing
nations and emerging powers have been pushing for a greater role.
The World Bank has long been criticized because the so-called free-market reform policies it typically
advocates—which include deregulation, privatization, and downscaling of government—can often hurt
economic development if they are implemented poorly or too quickly. The other chief criticism of the
World Bank is its tradition of American leadership. While the World Bank represents 186 countries, it has
been dominated by a small number of countries, especially America and the European powers. The in-
creasing resistance to that tradition is a sign of the growing economic power of the some of the formerly
developing nations that now want a place at the World Bank's boardroom table.
Created at the same conference, the International Monetary Fund was intended to prevent a reoccur-
rence of the Great Depression, when countries raised trade barriers in an attempt to protect national eco-
nomies. Doing so added to a great inflation problem and chaos in currency exchange that brought the in-
ternational banking system to its knees, worsening the worldwide depression of the 1930s.
After the war, the allied nations were primarily concerned with rebuilding Europe—war-torn France
received the first loan—and restoring the economic system. Among the delegates to the conference was
the British economist John Maynard Keynes, who wanted the IMF to act as a fund that would help create
economic activity; others wanted the IMF to function as a more traditional bank that made loans that had
to be repaid. It is an old argument that was being replayed in 2012 in both Europe and the United States,
as proponents of economic stimulus argued with those who want more austerity as a way of forcing gov-
ernments to live within their means.
The IMF was credited with helping to rebuild the system of capitalism after the war, but still allowing
for human welfare. Today, the number of IMF member countries has more than quadrupled—from the 44
states involved in its establishment to 188 today—as former colonial African countries and the Eastern
European nations once controlled by the Soviet Union have been invited to join.
Like the World Bank, the IMF has been criticized by some economists for demanding too much auster-
ity from borrower nations. This controversy was at the heart of the political chaos in Greece in 2012 when
the Greeks began to balk at the extreme austerity programs forced on the country by its lenders, leading to
the fall of the government.
Both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, although much changed since 1944, reflect
the postwar global economy that began to grow and has only accelerated in the early years of the twenty-
first century. The growing controversy over who holds the levers of power at these institutions reflects how
the world order has changed remarkably in the past few decades.
What Was the Arab Spring?
A wise man once sang, “You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” Bob Dylan's
“Subterranean Homesick Blues” spoke to a generation of American protesters in the 1960s. But those
words applied equally to a howling wind of protest that was a far cry from any weatherman's ideal spring-
time.
 
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