Robert McNamara, Paul Wolfowitz, and the World Bank

[alcibiades_mystery]

I haven't really seen it mentioned, so I thought I'd do so here.

We all know that Robert McNamara, Kennedy and then Johnson's Secretary of Defense, is widely considered one of the architects of the Vietnam War, so much so that the war was widely referred to as McNamara's war during his tenure. Less well known is the job he took after resigning as SecDef in 1968: he became the President of the World Bank. While there, he orchestrated the moves that would turn the emerging postcolonial countries - which had only recently thrown off the European-American yoke - into debt slaves, labor pools, and resource pits for the global North. As damaging as McNamara's technocratic insanity was when it came to Vietnam, his World Bank tenure was possibly far more destructive on a global scale, and could be said to have led to the shocking poverty and conflicts that we see today.

Now, there is obviously here a throw-away line when we see paul Wolfowitz, another war architect, ascend to he same position: Is a disastrous war a necessary resume item for World Bank president?

But more disturbing are the consequences. If McNamara managed the transition to globalized capital in postmodernity, following it through with the same ruthlessness that unleashed on the people of Southeast Asia, one can only imagine the evil that a Paul Wolfowitz could exercise in such a position, as he manages the transition toward a world capitalist fascism. Protesting the Iraq war is good, of course, and Wolfowitz should be held to account for his despicable actions on that front, but we mustn't miss the ball on the transition to the lighter form of power: the economic war he will wage on all the poor countries and poor peoples of the world through his World Bank position. If the Vietnam generation missed something, it was the deep connection between the conduct of the war itself and the economic machinations that followed it: both were strategies of the ruling elite for dealing with challenges to their dominance. When Mcnamara left the DoD, he was more or less forgotten, or turned over to the judgment of history. We should not make this mistake again. The indirect violence that Wolfowitz can commit as World Bank president makes the Iraq War look like a minor hold-up.

[Ernesto]

1. welcome aboard a_m

An interesting parallel indeed. I had all but forgotten about "Mr. light @ the end of the tunnel's" involvement in the world bank.