The World Bank Opens its Archives
Crow's Nest ·
Jul 3, 2011 at 7:56am
The World Bank’s President, Robert B. Zoellick, a Republican, has agreed to open the archive of the Bank. The Bank’s mission is to fund projects to foster growth and modernization in developing countries, but Zoellick argues that information is its true currency. He is seeking to “democratize development economics” by de-centralizing the process and trying to cut out the imperious, shadowy bureaucracy the Bank has often been synonymous with.
This act has raised two questions in my mind, which in turn I now pose to you, Ricochet:
1) Is “Development” a worthy goal for wealthy societies around the world to pursue?
2) Is “Transparency” the solvent of corruption?
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Oct '10
Re: The World Bank Opens its Archives
1) NO! Commerce is. Do business as a capitalistic enterprise, encouraging developing countries to exploit their talents and resources for personal gain. "Development" takes place as the citizens of a country personally engage and benefit from commerce. Funds for "development" generally buy fine wines for the ruling socialists, pad their Swiss bank accounts, buy their personal planes and build great edifices designed primarily to enhance the power of the elites in charge.
2) YES! But never forget that transparency can be faked by a well organized campaign of deception. Here in America, we have a vast amount of statistical information regarding the economy, but these stats have seen a great deal of changing over the last two years, and we no longer have any meaningful baseline for comparison in either unemployment or inflation.
Edited on Jul 3, 2011 at 7:22amJun '11
Re: The World Bank Opens its Archives
1. A Jesuit I knew years ago - Fr. Orestes Coccia - used to say something to the effect that it is impossible to explain your Faith and impossible to persuade someone to your Faith. One can only witness to one's Faith.
The example our economic system provides is enough for the rest of the world. Elites cooking up economic schemes for the rest of mankind gets dicey especially when those elites have never worked for a living.
2. The mantras about transparency - I often wonder if they simply mask the absence of personal integrity.
Re: The World Bank Opens its Archives
I'm with you on both counts, raycon.
May '10
Re: The World Bank Opens its Archives
Agree completely.
There is only one way to aid in the "development"of any nation, that being education. The best, most affordable, and only form of education that has ever proven to have real impact is experience WITH reward, learning by doing, classroom teaching is next to useless if there is no way to prove the value of what is learned.
Commerce,and the related education it requires, and provides, is without question the best teacher, and has a viral growth capability. Why learn to read, or do arithmetic, without a reason to use it? Reading invoices or receipts for goods, that have real personal economic value is reason enough to learn the 3R's in any nation, as it was here.
The problem for most in these concepts is that the payoff occurs over decades, and generations, our fast fix mentality has a problem with that approach.
Aug '10
Re: The World Bank Opens its Archives
About #2: transparency is necessary for a society with low corruption, but introducing transparency is not enough to actually reduce corruption.
Reformers sometimes fall into the analytic error of focusing on one institution's importance, when the real efficacy comes from the entire framework it is traditionally a part of. The liberty protecting institutions of free societies can not be translated piecemeal to non-free societies and reap the same benefits; either the entire framework or the entire culture needs to be transferred.
To take an exaggerated example, most of us would agree that "rule of law" was necessary in a free and equal society. But pursuing rule of law in an authoritarian state, or a country whose laws are despotic, leads to more repression, not more freedom.
Pursuing transparency in a culture that has normalized corruption and nepotism won't do much good. Nor would it do much good in a state with a weak judiciary that could not attempt to prosecute corrupt officials.
Oct '10
Re: The World Bank Opens its Archives
May I humbly suggest that interested readers pick up Hernando de Soto's The Mystery of Capital for a wealth of solid thinking about "development," "transparency," "civil institutions," and "legal institutions?"
I'll also note that my birth paternal grandfather, as it turns out, was an economist at the World Bank. I've always felt like I have some kind of obligation to make up for that, so perhaps the opening of the archives will alleviate some of that (self-imposed) burden. :-)
Edited on Jul 3, 2011 at 12:55pmMay '10
Re: The World Bank Opens its Archives
Well said.
May '10
Re: The World Bank Opens its Archives
Imagine the World Bank came in with some money and tried to "democratize" Chicago. Where do you suppose the money would go? How successful would they be? Would the locals outsmart them at every turn?
Now imagine the World Bank going into some country where they have even less (local) knowledge and expertise...
Jul '10
Re: The World Bank Opens its Archives
Show me a success story. The World Bank and the IMF were founded in 1945. Yet, when I read about them I find a lot of verbiage about their brilliant strategies and the unstoppable good they do. But not a spec of actual accomplishment. Where are the graduate countries? In 66 years, what has the West accomplished to provide the world with a sound financial basis for stability and prosperity? The First World has failed to provide prudent management for its own economies, instead embracing a bankrupt crony capitalism agenda.
The Audacity of Dopes.
Jul '10
Re: The World Bank Opens its Archives
Paul Snively: May I humbly suggest that interested readers pick up Hernando de Soto's The Mystery of Capital for a wealth of solid thinking about "development," "transparency," "civil institutions," and "legal institutions?"
I'll also note that my birth paternal grandfather, as it turns out, was an economist at the World Bank. I've always felt like I have some kind of obligation to make up for that, so perhaps the opening of the archives will alleviate some of that (self-imposed) burden. :-)
Regrets on your legacy. You have added another book to my summer reading list. It appears to include a recipe for a sound fiscal infrastructure. Perhaps the West should spend $10 on the book rather than trillions more on "stimulus". (Yes, children, those are scare quotes.)
Mar '11
Re: The World Bank Opens its Archives
A couple of responses to shorter themes that have emerged, before I begin my more lengthy response:
1) Hernando de Soto is fantastic. If anyone is unfamiliar with his work--either as a government advisor or as an author, Click here to see some of his stuff at CATO.
2) The World Bank is part of the American system that emerged at Bretton Woods. If anyone's at fault, FDR is, but we as a nation are. It is still chaired by an American.
3) Transparency. We've alluded to both the good that can come from transparency and some of the problems with it: it requires a certain level of social trust, it can be a kind of Orwellian doublespeak for concealment, or sometimes just a data-dump that is impossible to weed one's way through.
My $0.02: Transparency is a democratization of a certain reading of the Enlightenment claim that knowledge is power, which itself is a secularization of the Christian claim that truth will set you free. Whether you find those claims problematic or not is likely to govern how you think about transparency.
Mar '11
Re: The World Bank Opens its Archives
Now, onto development. I am playing the devil's advocate to a degree here, but our thinking on this issue needs to be flushed out to a greater extent.
Raycon told us that commerce raises everyone's standard of living and that it should be encouraged. But what does this encouragement look like?
Blue Ant cautioned us that social capital is needed for transparency to flourish, but how much more is it necessary for commerce and property rights?
Michael Kelley reminds us that only a society can fix the problems with that society, not some outside entity. But how can something emerge out of its opposite? How can we expect countries that wallow in domestic bribery and corruption (and have for years) to become other than what they are?
F.L. Booth told us that education is the key to development, but can we really expect education to happen in nations struggling daily with starvation, disease, and genocide without intervention from the outside world in some capacity?
What I am ultimately pointing to here, is this question: Are we arguing that development should/must happen, or merely the means by which it does?
Jun '11
Re: The World Bank Opens its Archives
If we say, Crow's Nest, that it "should" happen, then are we setting ourselves up as much more than just builders and financiers? Doesn't "should" carry with it wider implications of cultural involvement that lead us to the notion of nation building?
Is it naive of me to think that the fundamental flow of trade between tribes and nations, of buying and selling, of back and forth, is so powerful and dynamic a relationship that it becomes the spark that lights the fire of growth and development?
When different tribes trade with each other, that trade is an act of trust. Trust leads to wider communication. Wider communication leads to ideas exchanged and examples noted. It is a very natural path to opening borders.
If we say "should," it sounds to me like like a bunch of bureaucrats with degrees in Urban Planing deciding the rest of the world's fate.