{"id":23042,"date":"2026-07-30T09:03:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T13:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=23042"},"modified":"2026-07-30T09:03:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T13:03:08","slug":"new-york-times-abolish-the-world-bank-1989","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/30\/new-york-times-abolish-the-world-bank-1989\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Times: Abolish the World Bank (1989)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1989-NYT-New-YOrk-Times-World-Bank-Lends-to-Oppressive-Regimes-JpegSHARPENED.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-23045\" src=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1989-NYT-New-YOrk-Times-World-Bank-Lends-to-Oppressive-Regimes-JpegSHARPENED-653x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"653\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1989-NYT-New-YOrk-Times-World-Bank-Lends-to-Oppressive-Regimes-JpegSHARPENED-653x800.jpg 653w, https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1989-NYT-New-YOrk-Times-World-Bank-Lends-to-Oppressive-Regimes-JpegSHARPENED-836x1024.jpg 836w, https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1989-NYT-New-YOrk-Times-World-Bank-Lends-to-Oppressive-Regimes-JpegSHARPENED-122x150.jpg 122w, https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1989-NYT-New-YOrk-Times-World-Bank-Lends-to-Oppressive-Regimes-JpegSHARPENED-768x941.jpg 768w, https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1989-NYT-New-YOrk-Times-World-Bank-Lends-to-Oppressive-Regimes-JpegSHARPENED.jpg 900w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 653px) 100vw, 653px\" \/><\/a>The New York Times,\u00a0July 30, 1989,<\/p>\n<h2><a href=\"https:\/\/timesmachine.nytimes.com\/timesmachine\/1989\/07\/30\/issue.html\">\u00a0THE WORLD BANK; Fostering America&#8217;s Interests Abroad . . . But It Lends to Oppressive Regimes<\/a><\/h2>\n<p>BYLINE: By JAMES BOVARD; James Bovard is an adjunct analyst for the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., and author of &#8221;The Farm Fiasco.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Barber Conable, the former New York Congressman, took over the World Bank in 1986 promising to reorganize and redirect it. But, after three years, little has changed and the bank, the largest multilateral institution in the world, <strong>continues financing regimes that oppress people and mangle economies.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Last September, Congress approved a $4 billion pledge of callable capital to allow the bank to borrow more money and rapidly increase its lending. Mr. Conable boasts that the bank committed over $20 billion to the third world and East Europe in 1988, and World Bank officials have already spoken of lending up to $24 billion in 1989.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, the bank is setting new lending records by providing more and more capital to less and less creditworthy regimes. Eight nations have ceased repaying World Bank loans, and the bank has set up a special program to give new money to governments to repay their old loans.<\/p>\n<p>South Korea continues to receive extensive World Bank aid, even though it is a major industrial power with a huge manufacturing trade surplus. Yet when Mr.<br \/>\nConable was lobbying for this year&#8217;s $14 billion American pledge, he denied that South Korea was receiving any subsidy from the World Bank, because the interest rate charged on the Koreans&#8217; loan was a shade above the bank&#8217;s borrowing rate. But <strong>all World Bank loans are effectively subsidized by being underwritten by the <\/strong><strong>United States and other Western governments<\/strong>, and Korea has received loans at below-market interest rates from the bank.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Conable also misrepresented the nature of the World Bank&#8217;s efforts in Ethiopia. <strong>The Ethiopian Government is brutalizing its own people and doing its <\/strong><strong>best to make Idi Amin look like a moderate.<\/strong> The Government has begun a program to forcibly move three-quarters of the country&#8217;s population into Government-controlled villages, and last February peasants who resisted the Government&#8217;s notorious resettlement program were massacred by the Ethiopian army. Even so, the World Bank has continued providing a huge amount of aid &#8211; including over $100 million in 1988 &#8211; to the Ethiopian Government.<\/p>\n<p>During the 1980&#8217;s, the fastest growing part of the bank&#8217;s portfolio has been loans to communist governments. Mr. Conable told Congress, &#8221;The World Bank has<br \/>\nbeen instrumental in encouraging communist governments to decentralize and liberalize their economies and introduce economic market incentives.&#8221; But in<br \/>\nNovember l986, an internal review by the World Bank&#8217;s North African, Middle Eastern, and European section examined World Bank loans to Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia and concluded: &#8221;The major problem has been the unwillingness of these countries to allow bank involvement in policy issues. Projects have been<br \/>\nprepared to meet Five-Year Plan objectives which could not be questioned or analyzed by the bank.&#8221; World Bank money has therefore gone to finance the usual<br \/>\npriorities of the communist governments.<\/p>\n<p>The World Bank is priding itself on its structural adjustment program that allegedly exists to finance market-oriented reforms by recipients. But an August<br \/>\n1988 confidential World Bank analysis of the effects of structural adjustment lending showed that African countries that received adjustment loans are now<br \/>\ndoing significantly worse economically than African countries that had not received such loans. Worldwide, among governments that received structural<br \/>\nadjustment loans, comparing the period before and after receiving the loans, the World Bank study found that average external debt-export ratios increased from<br \/>\n272 percent to 392 percent, inflation increased in the majority of countries, and the average ratio of government expenditures to gross domestic product<br \/>\nincreased sharply, from 27.0 percent to 30.5 percent. The rise in government spending was predictable, since structural adjustment loans have been used to<br \/>\nincrease tax collection, raise civil service salaries and bail out floundering state-owned companies. These efforts epitomize the World Bank&#8217;s concept of<br \/>\n&#8221;free market.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Mr. CONABLE declared in 1987, &#8221;Our common goal should be to restore the major debtor countries to full creditworthiness within five to seven years.&#8221; At<br \/>\ntimes, he <strong>talks as if creditworthiness were a mysterious vapor that the bank can <\/strong><strong>create simply by dispersing more billions to needy governments<\/strong>. Many Latin American countries are not creditworthy largely because they are not trustworthy. Much of their problem is that their own citizens, if they can save a few dollars, send it out of the country as soon as possible before a politician steals it.<\/p>\n<p>The World Bank&#8217;s &#8221;have money, must lend&#8221; syndrome will continue to be a curse to the world&#8217;s oppressed citizens and a threat to financial stability. Mr.<br \/>\nConable should retire as soon as possible.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/JPB-World-Bank-Press-Passes-Wrecking-Ball-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-16963 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/JPB-World-Bank-Press-Passes-Wrecking-Ball-2-800x467.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"467\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/JPB-World-Bank-Press-Passes-Wrecking-Ball-2-800x467.jpg 800w, https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/JPB-World-Bank-Press-Passes-Wrecking-Ball-2-1024x597.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/JPB-World-Bank-Press-Passes-Wrecking-Ball-2-150x88.jpg 150w, https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/JPB-World-Bank-Press-Passes-Wrecking-Ball-2-768x448.jpg 768w, https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/JPB-World-Bank-Press-Passes-Wrecking-Ball-2.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/JPB-World-Bank-2016-Kings-College-magazine-first-page-partial.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-13075 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/JPB-World-Bank-2016-Kings-College-magazine-first-page-partial-800x269.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"269\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/JPB-World-Bank-2016-Kings-College-magazine-first-page-partial-800x269.jpg 800w, https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/JPB-World-Bank-2016-Kings-College-magazine-first-page-partial-150x50.jpg 150w, https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/JPB-World-Bank-2016-Kings-College-magazine-first-page-partial-768x258.jpg 768w, https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/JPB-World-Bank-2016-Kings-College-magazine-first-page-partial.jpg 850w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/857358-James-Bovard-Quote-Foreign-aid-breeds-kleptocracies-or-governments-scaled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-21315 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/857358-James-Bovard-Quote-Foreign-aid-breeds-kleptocracies-or-governments-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/857358-James-Bovard-Quote-Foreign-aid-breeds-kleptocracies-or-governments-800x450.jpg 800w, https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/857358-James-Bovard-Quote-Foreign-aid-breeds-kleptocracies-or-governments-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/857358-James-Bovard-Quote-Foreign-aid-breeds-kleptocracies-or-governments-150x84.jpg 150w, https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/857358-James-Bovard-Quote-Foreign-aid-breeds-kleptocracies-or-governments-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/857358-James-Bovard-Quote-Foreign-aid-breeds-kleptocracies-or-governments-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/857358-James-Bovard-Quote-Foreign-aid-breeds-kleptocracies-or-governments-2048x1152.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1989-JPB-Screenshot-2026-07-30-at-08-59-54-TimesMachine-July-30-1989-NYTimes.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-23046\" src=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1989-JPB-Screenshot-2026-07-30-at-08-59-54-TimesMachine-July-30-1989-NYTimes-1024x909.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"909\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1989-JPB-Screenshot-2026-07-30-at-08-59-54-TimesMachine-July-30-1989-NYTimes-1024x909.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1989-JPB-Screenshot-2026-07-30-at-08-59-54-TimesMachine-July-30-1989-NYTimes-800x710.jpg 800w, https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1989-JPB-Screenshot-2026-07-30-at-08-59-54-TimesMachine-July-30-1989-NYTimes-150x133.jpg 150w, https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1989-JPB-Screenshot-2026-07-30-at-08-59-54-TimesMachine-July-30-1989-NYTimes-768x681.jpg 768w, https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1989-JPB-Screenshot-2026-07-30-at-08-59-54-TimesMachine-July-30-1989-NYTimes.jpg 1100w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The New York Times,\u00a0July 30, 1989, \u00a0THE WORLD BANK; Fostering America&#8217;s Interests Abroad . . . But It Lends to Oppressive Regimes BYLINE: By JAMES BOVARD; James Bovard is an adjunct analyst for the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., and author of &#8221;The Farm Fiasco.&#8221; Barber Conable, the former New York Congressman, took over [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23046,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4904,1070,924,279,99],"class_list":["post-23042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-barber-conable","tag-communism","tag-ethiopia","tag-tyranny-2","tag-world-bank"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>New York Times: Abolish the World Bank (1989) - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"My 1989 New York Times piece on why the World Bank should be abolished so it ceases to vex the world.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/30\/new-york-times-abolish-the-world-bank-1989\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"New York Times: Abolish the World Bank (1989) - 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \"the roving inspector general of the modern state\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \"one-man truth squad.\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism &amp; Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. 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