The International Monetary Fund has an inglorious history of leaving a wake of economic, social and political disasters in Africa, Asia and Latin America in the 1980s/1990s with their Structural Adjustment Programmes. Essentially they acted as shock troops for neo liberal capitalism imposing wholesale privatisation of public services and companies, deregulation and liberalisation in favour of European and American big business and savage cuts in social spending – all leading to major suffering for workers and the poor in the target countries.
What an incredible sight to see the whole of the EU political establishment who endlessly boast about European democratic values in full flight before the speculators, bondholders and hedge fund operators who constitute the ‘markets’ which now exercise economic dictatorship over 500 million Europeans and especially over the working class of Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland.
The Irish and European financial system is broken, morally and in every other way. It is time for full public ownership with democratic control and direction to serve the needs of society rather than gorge the appetites for mega profits of the financial marketeers.
