Right-Wing and Left-Wing Critiques of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB)

This paper discusses the critiques forming the debate on the future of the two major global financial institutions – the IMF and the WB. The author does not claim what the IMF and the WB really are, but reviews how they are seen by their critics. The article describes and summarizes the multifaceted critical discussion and proposes an elementary scheme formed by four basic positions. These are based on two variables: (1) moderation or radicalism of the critiques; (2) their affiliation with the right or the left side of the political spectrum. As a result, four basic critical positions emerge: right reformers, right radicals, left reformers, and left radicals. This paper characterizes each of them by overviewing the opinions of two representative participants of the discussion.