Hidden Repression: How the IMF and World Bank Sell Exploitation as Development

by Alex Gladstein, Jeff Booth (Foreword), Farida Nabourema

The IMF and World Bank were created to help countries survive financial crises and to help them develop into prosperous economic actors. But their 75-year track record shows the their loans and structural adjustment policies have plunged poor countries into impossibly large debt traps and forced the Third World to focus on producing goods for consumption in the West, instead of growing consumption and industry at home. The Bank and the Fund’s “development and assistance” has been anything but. The reality is a history of neocolonial exploitation with shocking results.

Alex Gladstein has a lot to say about Bitcoin, human rights, financial privilege, and personal freedom. In his first book Check Your Financial Privilege, he says it, starting with the fact that anyone born into a reserve currency like the euro, yen, or pound has financial privilege over the 89% of the world population born into weaker systems.

As CSO of the Human Rights Foundation, Gladstein is uniquely positioned to detail the rise of Bitcoin from cypherpunk dream to the real-life Bitcoin stories happening to real people across the globe. For people around the world, outside of Wall Street, Bitcoin offers a means of freedom from inflation, political strife, and an outdated monetary system. For these people, the majority of the world’s population, it might even save their lives.

In reading through Alex's brilliant and comprehensive treatise, you will be investigating the big economic lie of our world at its that the powerful help the weak. Following that, you will face an important choice. What system do you choose?
—Jeff Booth, Author, Price of Tomorrow and GP, Ego Death Capitol

Although Gladstein's book rages against the injustice that characterizes the neoliberal economic model and the Bretton Woods institutions, it ultimately offers a glimmer of hope by demonstrating how Bitcoin, with its liberating philosophy, decentralized technology, and immutable functionality can help free nations and peoples from the debt trap.
—Farida Nabourema, Togolese writer, human rights defender, and Pan-Africanist

Alex Gladstein has written a powerful examination of an immensely important question that is usually overlooked in academia and What gives the World Bank and IMF such exorbitant power over the politics and finances of developing countries? By examining the monetary foundations of the question, Alex offers an astute assessment of the perverse incentives facing international financial institutions, and a compelling explanation for why the real beneficiaries of their programs are western financial institutions and governments, while the victims are the world's poorest people.
—Saifedean Ammous, Author, The Bitcoin Standard and The Fiat Standard


Alex Gladstein is a regular contributor to Bitcoin Magazine and the author of Check Your Financial Privilege. Read more of his insights and analysis at www.bitcoinmagazine.com.

Genres: Economics, Politics, Nonfiction, Finance, History

173 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 18, 2023

Reviews

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Concise and easy to read summary of the destructive neocolonial policies of the IMF/WB in the global south. Presenting bitcoin as the solution is… less than convincing. But fortunately it’s a short discussion that doesn’t detract from the rest of the book.

[Fernando Quintana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good book though I would have appreciated a little bit more depth in some topics. That said its IDEAL for those taking their first dive into the IMF and World Bank.

[Suryashekhar Biswas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well-researched work, with lots of credible facts and figures about the parasitic nature of institutions like the IMF and the World Bank, and the ways in which they extract surplus from dependent countries by allying with fascistic dictators, trapping the countries in sovereign debt, and maintaining it perpetually, all against the will of the working class and toilers of these nations, who are the ones who pay for it with their endless toil and live in unending suffering.

Despite the rightist/libertarian leanings of the author, it is to his credit that he represents the Marxist and various left-leaning voices accurately, which may include left-wing leaders of the various dependent countries that stood up to imperialism, or even the Marxist scholars (such as Cheryl Payer) whose research is quoted extensively.


However, the author concludes by suggesting that BitCoin is an alternative to all the problems laid out in the book. I need not comment on how that is a rather strange "solution" (to keep it mild.)

[Yuta · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5

[Eric Hulburd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good quick read. Nothing in here should be surprising, unless you're under the naïve impression that the WB and IMF agendas prioritize poverty reduction, democracy and human rights. Understanding just how explicitly their agenda undermines them is a bit depressing - most notably, how the WB and IMF impose structural adjustments on debtor nations such that they focus on exports that serve US economic interests at the expense of the people living in those countries that may benefit more from development of their own national industries, such as sustenance agriculture. I think the arguments in this book would have been stronger if it also contrasted the failures of the WB and IMF with some success stories of international development (such as the Marshall Plan).

The arguments at the end for Bitcoin seemed rushed and hand wavy and, IMO, risk conflating Bitcoin with a history of wolves appearing in sheep's clothing. I was hoping for more technical analysis and / or anecdotes here. I think breaking the book into a series of two parts may have served this.

That said, I am mildly optimistic on the Bitcoin front and I would recommend "Layered Money" and "Broken Money" as thorough looks into our current financial systems and how Bitcoin may serve or complement those systems.

[Joseph Voelbel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read on pernicious lending by the IMF and World Bank and how it guts the Global South via odious debt (without the concent of the governed). A little fact-heavy and bullet point rich, starts to morph into a data dump — could have used a titch more expositional narrative voice — but incredibly valuable insight and hot take on the old problem with fiat lending, how countries like New Guinea, Ghana, Thailand, Brazil, and Argentina became “extraction centers” of Structural Adjustment “terms and conditions” for loans they couldn’t climb out of, and how bitcoin could generate a “forced cooperation” between previously disinterested parties.

[Eimantas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seminal work by Gladstein.

Great documentation of current arrangements. Short and to the point. Whatever it is - it's not even remotely close to capitalism.

In the next 100 years or so it will be normal to remember this paradigm like we recall 16th-18th century slavery today - unaccountable, lawless, inhumane, and straight out criminal.

This book will age like fine wine.

[Mary Borsick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hidden Repression: We need to know this.

What has caused so much of the worlds suffering ? Why is todays world in such cataclysmic disarray?
Gladstein's work is a critical revelation of one the most heinous causes. This is an important work!

[Lara Amro · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent short read on the history, aftermath and outcomes of the IMF and world bank actions throughout history. With mention to multiple case studies and countries that were impacted by the structural adjustments carried out by the world bank and IMF.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easy to follow and trully informative.

[Xinyu Wu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not enough original content and research. If you are interested in this topic, "The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions" is a good one

[Abu Ikhlas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just two words. Eye opening.

[Joaquin · Rating 5 out of 5]

For those entering into the operational methods of supranational entities, this book offers a favourable overview of the negative impacts -mostly intentional- of the IMF.

[Charlie Haviland · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was skeptical of a book with this strong a title and an author who’s maybe best known as a Bitcoin advocate, but decided to read it anyways since it’s so short. I was very surprised by how well the author was able to make his case, bringing in loads of evidence from studies and previous books on this topic. It certainly gave me a better-informed perspective on these institutions.