It is now more than 25 years ago that the World Bank declared it had a dream: a world free of poverty. And because it was and remains a dream, poverty is still with us.
But the dream had some nasty consequences: it buried all research and all theories on development economics. In its World Development Report of 1990 the WB started to build its new knowledge. The title of the report was ‘Poverty’, but in fact it concerned the new economics, the new state, the new social paradigm.
Whatever criticism we may have on the early – mainly UN – development thinking, we have to remember that development was an emancipatory project, it was about diversifying and modernising national economies, it was about social development and a ‘unified approach’ for economic and social policies. It was about a belief in the possibility of shaping national economies and societies and about the specific policy needs of poor countries.
With the new agenda, the shaping of the global economy could start. ‘Mono-economics’ as Hirschmann called it, was back. Structural adjustment, as was called the Washington Consensus in the 1980s, became a global programme and the European Union is about the last group of countries being subjected to it right now.
The World Bank wanted to become a ‘knowledge bank’ and it started to build its knowledge on poverty. What is poverty? Who are the poor? Where do they live? What do they need? The neoliberal knowledge see the poor as individuals, they clearly need globalisation and free trade, they need states that are accountable, do not discriminate and do not intervene in the economy, except for promoting markets and competitiveness and protecting property rights. ‘The poor rarely speak about income’, the knowledge bank said, so poverty became a multidimensional problem.
Ten years later, in its new World Development Report on poverty, subjective elements were introduced. Poverty became mainly a lack of voice, a lack of empowerment, it was vulnerability. In this way, it became almost impossible to identify the poor and this approach gave rise to a new industry that tried to measure all these new dimensions. Poverty was still not about income and it was not about inequality. And it certainly was not about a lack of social policies or redistribution.
In the 21st century some things slowly started to change. As more and more criticism could be heard on these ‘poverty reduction policies’, especially within many UN organisations, a first opening was made to conditional cash transfers. More research was done on inequality. A theoretical framework for ‘social protection’ was published. Social protection became ‘risk management’.
However, the ideological core of the World Bank thinking did not change. The Doing Business Reports, especially with their ‘hiring and firing’ chapter, were very clear on that.
Poverty now became a problem of ‘risk-averse’ people. And the social protection hype did not last long. As for inequality, the WB claims it has to be tackled at the lower income end: sharing prosperity, which does not mean redistribution. The mantra remains: growth, growth, growth …
The 2015 World Development Report shows where we stand today. Poverty now is a ‘cognitive tax’! This means, according to the Bank, that it is hard for poor people to think deliberatively. It therefore proposes to redesign development: what the poor need are low-cost tools and changes, such as better framing and changing the timing of aid!
Rich countries will be happy to hear this message. They do not have to worry any more about aid flows. And at any rate ‘it is hard to predict in advance (sic) which aspects of program design and implementation will drive the choices people will make’. At 70 years, the World Bank is still ‘learning by doing’…
It is hard to not become as cynical as the World Bank clearly is. Development now becomes behavioural science. The neoliberal approach is turning into a neoconservative way of treating poor people. Don’t give money to the poor but force them to save. Wait to help till after the good harvest, when their decisions will be more rational. In the ‘Community-Led Total Sanitation’ project, people are told what the consequences of open defecation can be and yes, it lowered by 11%! But how do they get indoor toilets? How do they get water?
What about incomes? What about jobs? What about economic and social rights? What about social welfare? What about taxes and redistribution? And what about the commons?
What we are heading for is behavioural control of people, influencing their thinking, sanctioning bad behaviour, not for ideological reasons, oh no, but because ‘development theory’ is now saying that it helps.
And, implicitly, the next steps are being prepared and are in fact already implemented in many countries: repression of resistance, criminalization of social movements. And the demise of the state, being captured by corporate interests that do not need to be accountable, that can go on with land grabbing and robbing people of their livelihoods. Resistance? Just kill them. This is what is happening now, in France as well as in Mexico.
The World Bank is indeed a knowledge bank. It builds theoretical knowledge to justify this insane and criminal behaviour of corporations and governments. In the name of the poor!
But people do resist and will continue to do so. There is hope. I will come back to it next month.
