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Matthew Lewien English essay 9 th March 7th, 2024 The Second World War was waged on an incomprehensible scale across four continents. The effects of a global war were perceived differently by all parties involved. Georges Andre Kohn was a young Frenchman living in Paris during the war. How is his time during the war comparable to the life of Elie Wiesel, a Romanian Jew? There are two main ways that George Andre Kohn’s life compares to Elie Weisel.

The founding fathers maintained an inherent distrust of large government. Despite conflicting with the majoritarian model, the filibuster demonstrates the original values and principles taken into account when establishing the United States of America. The Senate, a lawmaking body formerly elected by state legislatures, remains representative of individual states rather than majority will. Because each state sends two representatives, half of congressional senators are elected by less than twenty percent of the total population. Through intended structure alone, the government of the United States demonstrates clear preference for the pluralistic model. In practice, the interests of states carry more influence than the interests of citizens. Concerning democratic principles, the filibuster is no more undemocratic than the government

majority plays only a small role in it. A few would argue that placing a limit on how

in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail.” Today

Several of the world’s most powerful and influential countries were not members, including the United States.

Ever since the advent of democratic systems of political decision-making in Ancient Greece, one of the primary concerns about democratic functioning has been the principle of majority rule. Whether a majoritarian system is divisive in its essence, paves the way for demagoguery, or obstructs minority groups from having a fair say in public affairs, criticisms of majority rule have and still persist nowadays. Indeed, notorious political figures such as Hamilton, Madison or Mill expressed concerns about the potential threat of a tyranny of the majority which would infringe on citizens’ fundamental rights. Moreover and recently, the outcome of the Brexit referendum has renewed the debate around majority rule and its flaws. However, within the context of the contemporary world in which democracy prevails, majority rule is the norm many states follow. Why is this so; how can majority rule be defended and what are its limits? In order to provide an articulate and coherent answer, it is first necessary to lay down some premises to the functioning of the democratic process. Then, after arguing for majority rule, its flaws shall be assessed before eventually drawing potential alternatives from such dysfunctions.

Throughout, there is a keen sense that the IMF is completely guided by ideology which is focused on the free market and the markets’ ability to guide the economy properly at all times. It would seem that all those who work at the IMF are misguided and/or towing the party line in the form of the Washington Consensus. Moreover, of greater concern is perhaps that throughout this piece, it would seem that the World Bank could do no wrong. Stiglitz portrays himself and the World Bank as the white knight(s) who were championing the rights of those who could not fight for themselves against the US government, the US Treasury and even the Federal Reserve. He does so with little regard to any policies or actions that these organizations have done for positive reasons or with positive results. He displays unwavering support for governments to stimulate aggregate demand via social spending, so it is surprising that he is so punitive towards Western governments.

The objectives and principles also mandate special consideration be given to the smaller, less developed countries of the hemisphere. These provisions reflect both the unique challenges facing the smaller, poorer countries and their influence in a process in which each country, regardless of size, in effect has veto power.

Although global actors can sometimes have considerable power over states, the extent of this power ultimately depends on the relative power and influence of the state in question. Large developed states, such as the US, are extremely powerful compared to most other global actors and are not often influenced by their actions. However, small and undeveloped states are not always completely powerless. To determine whether states are indeed the most powerful global actors, we must look at the relative powers of trans-national corporations (TNCs), non-government organisations (NGOs) and some of the institutions of global governance.

This point of view explored functions for agencies such IMF and World Bank would discussed at last part of this essay.

Here the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, later divided into the World Bank and Bank for International Settlement, were established. To regulate the international policy economy these institutions become known as the Bretton Woods institutions and became operational in 1946. The IMF, founded to stabilize countries' currencies in relation to each other, holds money in trust, which member countries can borrow according to terms set by the institution. The World Bank instead gives more long-term loans and sells bonds to corporations and governments, which bind the issuer to pay the bondholder the amount of the loan plus interest. However, the countries taking advantage of the opportunity to borrow money to improve their affected economy are obliged to launch a set of policies, known as the Washington Consensus, which was first presented in 1989. The reforms introduced by the Institute for International Economics include "deregulation, privatization, currency devaluation, social spending cuts, lower corporate taxes, export driven strategies, and removal of foreign investment restrictions" . More, "these loans are only granted when the countries agree to the adoption to a comprehensive programme of macro-economic stabilization and structural economic reform."

International banks have made risky loans all over the world because they knew that if trouble arose, the fund would step in to resolve the situation – as it has done in the past. The IMF has played a critical role in many of the epochal events in the 1990’s. The IMF lent 18 billion dollars to Mexico in 1994, after the peso collapsed. It gave Russia over 10 billion dollars in 1999. The IMF has helped drive inflation from 1,000 percent a year down to a tolerable 10 percent a year, thanks to Russia listening to what the IMF said and doing as they suggested. It has given Indonesia 10 billion dollars, and has helped Indonesia demonopolize industries. It gave 4 billion to Thailand, which was the epicenter of the East Asian Crisis. The IMF helped closed dozens of reckless banks. True, the IMF did many little things wrong, however, it did the important ones right. The Philippines is a prime example on how effectively the IMF can work. For years, Filipinos suffered the weaknesses of economic and business policies. Under the tutelage of the International Monetary Fund for nearly 30 years, and especially during the past decade, they faced up to their problems. Many sectors of their society suffered greatly, and some complained loudly. However, they persisted and, with the help of the IMF and the courage of the Philippine people, they exited from the IMF program. How did they do this? They assembled one of the best economic

Argentina is a well known case study of the failure or negative outcome of some IMF's standard policies. In fact, Argentina carefully applied policies dictated by IMF, but, until it stuck up with those policies, it couldn't step out from its crisis, and it ran into even deeper economic and social problems. This failure of the IMF has often been cited as the demonstration of unsuitability of the standard IMF approach (the usual so-called Washington Consensus) for solving economic crisis in developing countries (Serra & Stiglitz, 2008, p. 44). Also, this failure led to hostile feelings versus IMF among the population of Argentina (Kanenguiser, 2000) and fueled generalised suspects over IMF decision-making process being politicized and serving

This paper was prepared for GD530 Economics and the International System, taught by Professor Snow

The IMF has a history with the country of Pakistan which may be viewed as very problematic for the people of the country – depending on who you ask. In my research for one specific problem to write about pertaining this issue, I decided to encompass the entire project of Pakistan, which to many would be considered a massive failure on the part of the IMF and the ruling elite class of Pakistan.