Obama’s Pick for World Bank Hates Capitalism!
Imagine if President Obama appointed radical Noam Chomsky, who has denounced capitalism as a “murderously destructive catastrophe,” to head up a committee on economic growth. That’s less of a stretch than it may seem, considering Obama’s nominee to head the World Bank, current Dartmouth College President Jim Yong Kim. Kim’s expertise is in health policy, but what is on the public record, however, is troubling. A case in point is a collection of studies that Kim co-edited in 2000, Dying for Growth: Global Inequality and the Health of the Poor. The grim title accurately reflects the book’s radical central premise, namely that capitalism and economic growth is bad for the poor across the world.
If economic growth hurts the poor, especially in the Third World, what helps their cause? The book answers that question with a chapter touting what it considers a true success: communist Cuba!
It is hard to see how the World Bank will help that cause if led by an open critic of economic growth like Jim Yong Kim. The bank doesn’t lack its critics, to be sure, and there is considerable debate about whether the institution is really effective. But it’s hard to see how its reputation will be redeemed by a World Bank president who seems to believe that the greatest danger to the global poor comes from the only proven strategy to improve the quality of their lives. (C) Jacob Laksin
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| And yes I CAN count to 10...but that's about it! |
If economic growth hurts the poor, especially in the Third World, what helps their cause? The book answers that question with a chapter touting what it considers a true success: communist Cuba!
It is hard to see how the World Bank will help that cause if led by an open critic of economic growth like Jim Yong Kim. The bank doesn’t lack its critics, to be sure, and there is considerable debate about whether the institution is really effective. But it’s hard to see how its reputation will be redeemed by a World Bank president who seems to believe that the greatest danger to the global poor comes from the only proven strategy to improve the quality of their lives. (C) Jacob Laksin
