To: RON BL who wrote (24740 ) 3/15/2002 10:34:53 PM From: Tadsamillionaire Respond to of 59480 Keynes anticipated the need for the IMF and the World Bank, but not on the lines insisted upon by the Americans. "We need," he said in 1943, "a central institution, of a purely technical and non-political character, to aid and support other international institutions concerned with the planning and regulation of the world's economic life." Instead, as Skidelsky shows, the US Treasury was determined "to concentrate financial power in Washington". Keynes backed gifts as well as low-interest loans for countries recovering from war, or otherwise impoverished. His open-mindedness and generosity, as well as professional rigour, might have resolved the problems of indebted poor countries long ago. Changes towards the direction of Keynes are now being signalled. UN agencies such as the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development are promoting a much larger role for social policy. The World Bank's policies on structural adjustment and social funds have come under sustained criticism for deepening rather than alleviating poverty, and denuding governments of already threadbare public services. The implication is the need to restore or create large-scale, if "basic", public services. The United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef), especially, have exposed the weaknesses of the strategy of economic growth, privatisation and cuts in public expenditure whatever the social cost. The Washington consensus is being challenged. Even Joe Stiglitz, the chief economist at the World Bank, wanted to start a palace revolution and soften the bank's rigid strategy. He was forced out of office. Like global warming the message about global polarisation has become stark. Change soon or there will be disaster. For Britain and other countries, as for the powerful financial international agencies, there has to be a revival of Keynesian planning for modernised social insurance, more jobs in the public services, more redistribution and less privatisation in the economy.society.guardian.co.uk