148/YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE!
(World Bank, 1995). Nevertheless, the Bank Is generous enough to
tolerate the existence of unions: 'It is not necessary to refuse to
recognise the rights of workers for revenue growth to occur' (World
Bank, 1995).
- Pensions
In recent years, the World Bank has turned its attentions to pension
reform. It actively promotes capitalisation-style pension systems
based on the development of private pension funds. Such funds have
grown in size and number in Brazil, Chile and Mexico - encouraged
by the World Bank and big capital. In Brazil, a number of them have
already run into problems; their managers are regularly implicated
in corruption scandals.
- Poverty and the Social Safety Net
The Bretton Woods institutions have abandoned the goal of poverty
eradication, or even of generalised poverty reduction. It is now about
'managing poverty' to make it 'bearable'. At the same time as cuts are
made in social spending, programmes aimed at the poorest sectors
are put together. This is meant to be a more effective system, yet these
targeted programmes are combined with 'cost recovery' and the 'pri
vatisation' of healthcare and education (people must now pay for
medicine, medical consultations and school tuition).
The state has withdrawn from a number of sectors. A number of
programmes previously run by government ministries are now
managed by civilian organisations and NGOs which have taken on
the functions of local government. With funding frozen by structural
adjustment programmes (SAPs), small-scale production and
handicrafts, subcontracting for export houses, training in local
community groups, local employment schemes and other such
activities have been incorporated into the 'social safety net'. In this
way, local populations' fragile conditions for survival are maintained
while the danger of social upheaval is contained.
- Good Governance
Although the World Bank denies it, since the beginning of the 1990s
the granting of loans has been explicitly linked to a series of political