THE WORLD BANK AND THE IMF/115The World Bank's Beginnings: Foiled by the Marshall Plan
Keynes wanted the 'reconstruction' component of the Bank to make
it an institution that loaned capital to countries that had been
'devastated by the war, to help them rebuild their ruined economies
and replace lost or destroyed means of production'. As a result, it was
expected that the Bank would start by focusing on European recon
struction, and that its priority would be to back private investment.
It was expected that direct lending would be at best a secondary
activity.
Under US pressure, however, the Bank did not really participate in
European postwar reconstruction. The Marshall Plan, set up by the
US alone, occupied this function. The Bank made only four loans
worth a total of S49 7 million for reconstruction, while the Marshall
Plan pumped in S41.3 billion.
As an institution for reconstruction, the Bank was a failure. A war-
ravaged Europe did not need interest-bearing loans for specific
projects that took a long time to prepare. Rather, it needed quickly
disbursed grants and low or zero-interest loans in order to strengthen
its balance of payments position and purchase the basic goods of
which it was in such dire need.
The World Bank and Development
The ultimate objective of the Bank, as laid down in its statutes, was
also to assist in the 'development of the productive resources of
member-states, and thereby help to improve domestic productivity
and the conditions and standard of living of working people'.
In the decades subsequent to this failure in the phase of 'recon
struction', the Bank focused on the second component of its name -
'development'. But since it has always been firmly under the control
of the main capitalist powers, its conception of development has
never been concerned with efforts aimed at emancipating the peoples
of the Third World while ensuring egalitarian social development.
The ten most industrialised capitalist countries have always
controlled more than 50 per cent of World Bank shares (and votes) -
which means that, if ever the need arises, they can push through a
specific orientation. This has only happened on rare occasions, since
the main capitalist powers prefer compromises in which they retain
the upper hand and do not have to put things to a vote.