Today, the IMF put out an announcement clarifying the terms of its new loan to Haiti–it’s “an interest-free loan of $100 million in emergency funds.” A spokesman for the IMF emailed me to confirm that “the US$100 million loan does not carry any conditionality. It is an emergency loan aimed at getting the Haitian economy [...]

Naomi Klein’s book The Shock Doctrine warned of the rise of “disaster capitalism” under which governments and corporations use disasters as a chance to push through free-market policies unachievable in times of stability. Where most see a crisis, neoliberal actors spy new market opportunities. And with poor countries desperate for any kind of aid, they are [...]

Climate-justice activists in Copenhagen will argue that, far from solving the climate crisis, carbon-trading represents an unprecedented privatization of the atmosphere, and that offsets and sinks threaten to become a resource grab of colonial proportions. Not only will these “market-based solutions” fail to solve the climate crisis, but this failure will dramatically deepen poverty and [...]