The World Bank was set up in 1946 to stabilise and assist the development of world capitalism after World war Two. Since then it has evolved into an instrument of the major capitalist powers for taking over control of the economies of Third World countries.
This often involves forcing these states to remove the limited safeguards they have put in place to regulate international capital's impact on their economies.
The bank offers poorer countries grants and loans which they use to finance reforms and modernisation of their health, education and welfare systems. The catch is that they have to implement reforms written by the bank's neo-liberal economists and advisors.
At the past two World Bank annual meetings, delegates from Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Pacific demanded that the representatives of borrowing nations be the final arbiters of all economic policies in their coun tries. This is a challenge to the bank's very structure.
The US has 16% of the votes on its board while the world's 80 poorest countries have just 10% of the vote. Another 20% of the votes goes to rich G7 countries who don't borrow from the bank. Allowing the poorer countries to decide how the money is spent is a real threat to the power of the rich.
The United States fears the democratisation of the bank. In June 2003 then-Executive Director for the United States Carole Brookins wrote "Giving population and other factors a weight in voting strength would create a radically different, less desirable and non-financial structure for the Bank."
The Bush administration has reacted forcefully by nominating Paul Wolfowitz. He is a man with a long pedigree of planning and organising imperialist violence.
His official biography says Wolfowitz continued to support the Suharto regime throughout the praising his "strong and remarkable leadership" in testimony on Indonesia -before a U.S. Congressional committee in 1997. "Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, Wolfowitz has assisted in planning the global war on terrorism, including military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq."
As long ago as 1977-1980 Wolfowitz led the first major assessment of U.S. strategic interests and challenges in the Persian Gulf. He also helped initiate the Maritime Pre-positioning Program, a plan that positioned heavy weapons and ammunition aboard ships in the Persian Gulf region.
That preparation was the backbone of the initial U.S. response 12 years later during Operation Desert Shield. Wolfowitz has dedicated his entire political career -to expanding the American Empire.
Wolfowitz's defenders point to his experience of living three years in a developing country, while he was US ambassador to Indonesia. But far from displaying any commitment by Wolfowitz himself, or the US State Department, to "democracy" that period 1986-89 represented a high point of the repressive regime of General Suharto.
His CIA-backed dictatorship slaughtered upwards of 500,000 communists and other opponents, and remained in control until 1998, amassing a corrupt personal empire for Suharto and his family valued anywhere from $16 billion to $35 billion in industries ranging from hotels and transportation, to banks and automobiles.
Human rights activists and anti-corruption campaigners received no support from Wolfowitz during his time in Jakarta.
He continued to support the Suharto regime throughout the 1990s, praising his "strong and remarkable leadership", in testimony on Indonesia before the U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee Foreign Operations in 1997.
The nomination of a political figure with such a poor track record underlines the extent to which the World Bank is seen by Bush as little more than a front for US policy, while his subsequent unanimous endorsement by the Bank's Executive Board -in the absence of any other candidate - spells out the lack of serious democracy UL accountability at the top level of the Bank, and the servile deference to Bush not only from Blair but from other EU and Gå countries.
Wolfowitz's appointment alongside that of John Bolton to the United Nations indicates that the neo-conservatives are putting some of the most distinguished members of their Praetorian Guard into the international institutions.
They will go into their debating chambers with the express intention of bullying and cowing dissident voices using their veto and financial clout to get what they want.
The resistance to them will not come from the bankers and diplomats. It will come from the millions who take to the streets against war and neo-liberal economics.
Bush (top) new UN Ambassador John Bolton (nice syrup!) and new Bank chief Wolfowitz Michael Howard is grasping for any populist buttons to push to build up a plausible Tory campaign challenge