Planet of Slums

In the 1980s, when the World Bank and IMF leveraged the debt of most of the developing world, “slums became an implacable future not just for poor rural migrants, but also for millions of traditional urbanites displaced or immiserated by the violence of ‘adjustment’” (152).

The beginning of the IMF and the World Bank’s dominion began in the mid-1970s, when rising oil prices sent many poor countries into financial distress. The client nations of the IMF faced coercive conditions; in the 1985, the Baker plan required the 15 largest debtors to drop state-led development plans in exchange for new loans and continued membership in a world economy. The IMF and the World Bank—"acting as bailiffs for the big banks and backed by the Reagan and George H. W Bush administrations” (153)—provided poor countries harmful cures like devaluation, privatization, the lessening of food subsidies and imports, cheaper health and education, and major reductions to the public sector. These were the tenets of Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs).

Debt transferred power from state governments to the IMF and World Bank (which are controlled by the US and other developed capitalist and imperial countries). Using false or empty

Don't Miss Out!

Access Study Guide Now