Wild West Goes East

Battle, K. (2014). World Bank Issues: The policy imposed on Russia. In Covell, K., & Howe,

R.B. (Eds), A question of commitment: People’s rights in the World (pp. 21-44). Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.

Ken Battle explains that the World Bank has developed a free-market strategy and wants it to be applied everywhere, regardless of the nature of the problems.  The World Bank workers in Europe and Washington are responsible for handling the task of reconstructing the Former Soviet Union (FSU). The author further outlines some fundamental assumptions supporting the belief that all societies should support the World Bank even when its policies are not up to the mark. A large number of consultants coming from the West to reform the FSU have no experience of working outside their cities. Battle laments that the government has scaled back this program in favor of the Universal Child Care Benefit (UCCB). However, he could make the work stronger and better by conducting a few surveys. The author does offer valuable sources to prove his points and helps other analyze the financial reality and the scope of the World Bank in the United States of America. Despite an abundance of experiences about what type of policies the World Bank introduces, Ken sees lots of new projects that may fail in coming months.

English Annotation

Ehrenreich, B. (2016). Nickel and dimed: On (not) getting by in America. New York: Henry Holt and Company.

Here, Ehrenreich tries to ascertain whether it is possible for a person to live on a minimum-wage in the United States and Canada or not. The author beautifully reflects and summarizes her work, her financial problems, and her relationship with the workers of the World Bank. She is familiar with the limitations of her work and the ethical implications of her research tactics and has talked about the similar problems in the text. Ehrenreich also compares the current and previous waves of globalization.

The focus of her research is the impacts of economic integration on developed countries.  A few years ago, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank endorsed a framework to achieve sustainable results. It placed requirements that countries receiving debt relief and concessional lending will adopt specific poverty reduction strategies and will have to fund both local and international projects. The author supplements her experience with scholarly research and highlights the rising costs of living in the developed countries, including the United States of America and Canada.