Dehumanization and Disempowerment of Third World Workers

Since the rise to power of the world regulatory financial institutions IMF (International Monetary Fund), WTO (World Trade Organization) and the World Bank in the past few decades, innumerable promises have been made by elite neo-liberals steering these organizations of increased prosperity to so-called Third World or Southern countries with the implementation of numerous pre-drafted policies. Despite the platitudes repeated ad nauseam by these elites, case after case has proven that in place of guaranteed prosperity several general and devastating socio-cultural symptoms almost invariably accompany enactment of IMF, WTO and World Bank schemes in Third World countries. First, required deregulation of investment and development engenders loss of worker and civilian rights and privatization of public services by multinational corporations. Second, financial desperation of the populace at the mercy of these policies leads to exploitative sweatshop conditions; foreign investment biases combine to enfeeble local and traditional modes such as farming and indigenous ways of life. Third, carpetbagging and biased foreign investment deprives Southern economies of funds needed to address escalating debt from IMF and World Bank loans, while these loan payments sap monies from essential expenditures in these countries. As these apparently dire symptoms are elaborated alternative modi operandi will be suggested.

While the deregulation, or liberalization as it is positively termed, of investment in developing countries pursuing the World Bank and IMF's SAPs (structural adjustment programs) in cases does attract significant foreign speculation, these countries may only attract these monies through subjection to a host of SAP requirements that deprive the local populace of numerous rights and services. As Cavanagh (55-56) outlines, among these requirements is the diminishment of government spending on public services and price subsidies on necessities such as staple foods. Ross condemns this system as exploitative and unethical, outlining that: