Debt, the IMF, and the World Bank: Sixty Questions, Sixty Answers

As this fine study demonstrates, the debt that is strangling the world is largely an ideological fiction, devised in the service of wealth and power, without legitimacy or moral force. The authors unravel the layers of deceit and distortion that conceal the ugly reality with skill and precision, and provide an important tool for liberating the mass of suffering people who are caught in its shackles.

—Noam Chomsky

An important, accessible, and powerful book. Toussaint and Millet provide an in-depth look at debt in the global south, including the origins of the debt, its impact on people around the world, and possible solutions. But the book is about much more than debt, as the authors explain the historical context behind the debt crisis, including the role of key players and the way in which debt is linked to foreign policy, war, corruption, and economic agendas. Toussaint and Millet provide a key intervention at a moment when we must all rethink the way the global economy should function.

—Stephanie Luce, Associate Professor, The Murphy Institute, City University of New York

This excellent handbook on the Washington-based international financial institutions and the debt mechanism by means of which the Global South is subjugated is not only an indispensable tool for pro-poor anti-debt activists, but also a very useful synthesis that can and should be used in classrooms.

—Gilbert Achcar, Professor of Development Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

This timely new book rightly proposes radical, pro-development alternatives to the current order of things, not least via calls for the cancellation of the illegitimate international debts made to developing countries. Critics of the global financial architecture and students and teachers of development economics will find in this important new book an empowering and accessible intellectual framework for their work.

—Ilene Grabel, Professor of International Economics, Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver

Éric Toussaint is one of the brightest and most influential economists of his generation. He is the founder of the CADTM, and has gained a worldwide reputation for his exemplary struggle against the ‘odious debt’ strangling countless countries in the South.

—Jean Ziegler, former UN Special Rapporteur