This is the magic stick in which they subjected poor peoples economy

This week, the American capital, Washington, receives the Spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank for 2025, where finance ministers and central bank governors from all over the world participate; To discuss global economic issues.

While these meetings are a good opportunity to discuss the current economic challenges, which include recently escalating troubles in many major economies, against the background of US President Donald Trump imposing a trade war on many of his allies and opponents, we do not expect to hear a lot about the most urgent problem, related to canceling the debts of developing countries, or restructuring some of them.

Over the years, many recent meetings witnessed the repetition of the scene of ministers and financial and businessmen’s departure from luxury cars in front of the gates of the buildings of the World Bank Group in the center of the American capital, wearing their dark uniforms, and smells fragrant smells, while some of the displaced and beggars from a small garden, separated from the buildings of the World Bank a few meters, and they used to install their tents in front of the ancient financial institution at the time of the meetings, They often remind them of the harsh conditions they live in and millions of others in developing countries, which the financial institution claims to seek to help them, to help them improve the conditions of its citizens.

The American economist David Grayber, who was a professor at the American University of Yale and the London College of Economics, presents a fundamental criticism of the way global financial institutions operate, led by the International Monetary Fund, in their dealings with developing countries, where he sees that the loans provided from them were not only an economic tool, but it was often a political stick to dominate and subjugate peoples, which is what he considered embodied Clearly in the policies of the International Monetary Fund in recent decades, especially through the so -called structural adaptation programs.

In his book on religion “Debt: The First 5000 Years”, Grayber showed how the conditions of the IMF, which are imposed on borrowed countries, lead to the destruction of the social fabric of these countries, especially when it comes to reducing public spending on vital sectors such as health and education.

Although these policies are promoted as necessary steps for financial reform and the achievement of economic stability, the reality has proven that, in many cases, the direct cause of uncomfortable humanitarian disasters.

Among the examples he mentioned in his book, Grayber referred to Zambia, which in the late 1990s was forced to reduce its health care budget by 50% in implementation of the conditions of the IMF.

This led to a severe shortage of medicines and doctors, and the decline in the number of vaccination campaigns, which caused the death of nearly 30,000 children annually for reasons that could be prevented.

During that period, Zambia was spending more than 40% of its national income on the service of external debt, while hospitals lacked the simplest diagnostic tools, and patients were asking them to buy gauze and antibiotics from the black market if they wanted to receive treatment.

In Tanzania, the spending reduction policies imposed within the structural adaptation program led to a 40% reduction in the education budget during only one decade, which caused the closure of hundreds of schools, and the rate of enrollment in basic education decreased to less than 50% by the mid -1990s.

The ability of poor families to send their children to schools has declined after imposing study fees, apparent in mercy, and the inner of them, especially for girls. The World Bank itself estimated these policies losing more than 10 million African children the opportunity of education between 1985 and 2000.

In Peru, which is one of the countries that have undergone harsh reforms under the supervision of the IMF, the government was forced in the early 1990s to reduce the health budget by 25%, which caused a health disaster, especially in rural areas, as more than 1.,000 primary health care units were closed across the country, and the vulnerability against measles decreased from 80%to less than 50%, which led to the spread of the disease again and the death of thousands From children.

Grayber connects in his book, as well as in many of his articles and lectures, between these disasters and the nature of the global financial system, which does not treat developing countries as partners, but as singers that must be disciplined.

Grayber notes that these policies were designed mainly to protect the interests of banks and creditors in the northern countries, as he put it, especially the United States and Britain, where the money that was lended to the countries of the South most often was directed to the resluity of previous debts and the payment of accumulated benefits, without the average citizen benefiting from its dollars.

Grayper is not satisfied with economic analysis, but rather connects these phenomena a long history of using religion as a means of control. In ancient times, as mentioned, periods of accumulation of large debts often end with the declaration of the kings of those ages “pardoning debts” to protect society from collapse. As for the modern neoliberal system, the opposite is what is happening, as the people are sacrificed in order to save religion.

The paradise that Grayper refers to is that the rich countries that impose these policies on poor countries, such as the United States, would not have been established mainly had it not been for their own debts in early stages of their history, or by reschedule a facilitator that was presented to them in later periods.

On the other hand, the developing countries are imposed on harsh conditions, forcing them to sell their public assets, dismantle social protection networks, and open their markets in an unequal manner.

In their contemporary form, loans from international institutions and some donor countries lost any moral meaning, and turned into a way to reproduce poverty and dependency, which imposes a rethinking rethinking on the foundations on the global financial system, as recent global experiences have proven that the liberation of peoples cannot take place without liberation from the grip of creditors, and from the logic of the market that measures everything with profit and loss, even lives.