The flap about Wolfowitz
Joseph Stiglitz complained the other day that Bush's decision to appoint the godawful Paul Wolfowitz to the presidency of the World Bank will provoke worldwide outrage against the Bank. Funnily enough, he says this as if it would be a bad thing. I must be one of the few people who think that a Wolfowitz presidency of the World Bank is in fact a good thing because a worldwide backlash against the Bank would be a very good thing. If a relative unknown or someone who could be taken seriously was named to head the World Bank, it would be much harder for people in the developed world and on the less well informed fringes of the social movements to get the message that it is nothing more than an instrument of American imperialism. With Wolfowitz at the head, this fact will be blindingly obvious. In other words, this will spare all of us on the left the effort of persuading people that the Bank is an instrument of American imperialism. Bush has therefore done our work for us. He has discredited the Bank in a single stroke - accomplishing overnight something political activists have been been struggling to do for years.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: Mark Weisbrot: 'Here in Washington, there is a deep sense of dread and malaise among World Bank staff. Naturally they do not want to be seen as just another instrument of U.S. foreign policy. But most people are not aware how much the World Bank already plays that role.'
BELOW: Wolfie on the rampage, taken from here
UPDATE: I see George Monbiot took the same view on Wolfowitz's nomination in an April 5, 2005 column. Glad to have anticipated one of my favourite commentators by nearly two weeks!
