Report on the Collapse of Global Economies with Neoliberal IMF Programs / Publication of the Book ‘Loan for Destruction’

According to Khabaronline News Agency, quoting IRNA’s Religion and Thought Service, a new edition of the book “Loan for Destruction,” with the subtitle “What Did the International Monetary Fund Bring Upon Countries?”, has been published by Mardomnegār Publishing. This book is the result of Merjaneh Fashahi’s translation from the German text titled “Global Power: The IMF: A Series of Reports on a Global Plunder” (Weltmacht IWF: Chronik eines Raubzugs), which was published in 2014 by Tectum Verlag in Marburg.

The German publisher introduces the book as follows: “The 2008 financial crisis and the Euro crisis were just the first messages of a global financial tsunami in which the ‘International Monetary Fund’ and its allies took actions that we are still unable to fully comprehend today. In this global sphere, Germany, as the ‘economic engine of Europe,’ is not an island that will avoid an incurable disease in the long run. A factor that plays a very important and effective role in future social progress and development is social inequality. In Germany, this has reached its highest limit within Europe. According to a report by the ‘German Institute for Economic Research,’ in March 2014, this inequality was even higher in 2012 than in Italy and Greece. […] The cost of success for Europe’s ‘economic engine’ must be paid by millions of workers with very low wages, temporary or day laborers, recipients of cash benefits, retirees pushed into poverty, and discriminated children. For these individuals, the phrase ‘equality of opportunity’ is alien and meaningless; their living environment no longer has any connection to the ‘welfare measures for all’ that became the country’s slogan after World War II and envisioned a suitable future for everyone. Due to Germany’s strong dependence on its exports, the nation’s fate depends on the fate of other importing countries.”

Ernst Wolff

The author of the book is Ernst Wolff. Born in 1950 in Southeast Asia, Wolff went to America to study history and philosophy after spending his childhood in Germany. He has worked in various professions, including journalism, translation, and writing. Currently, the interplay between economics and politics, which has occupied him for four decades, holds a special priority for him. Other books by this author include “Financial Tsunami: How the Global Financial System Threatens Us All” (Finanz-Tsunami: Wie das globale Finanzsystem uns alle bedroht), published in 2017, and “Wolff of Wall Street: Ernst Wolff Explains the Global Financial System” (Wolff of Wall Street: Ernst Wolff erklärt das globale Finanzsystem), published in 2022, the latter of which will also be published by Mardomnegār with Ms. Fashahi’s translation.

The book “Loan for Destruction” is a report on the results of the International Monetary Fund’s programs in various countries, from Chile and Argentina in South America to South Korea and other emerging economies in East Asia.

Wolff also goes beyond examples from other books, such as Naomi Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism,” which is the result of Klein’s and her assistant’s field research from 2004-2007, and enumerates more recent events related to bankruptcy, debt, and economic austerity crises in European countries like Iceland, Ireland, Greece, and Cyprus in the last two decades and after the 2007-2008 economic crisis.

The relationship between the implementation of neoliberal programs and authoritarian regimes is a topic explored within these economic developments; from the Bretton Woods Conference and political changes after World War II to the formation of the International Monetary Fund; from the political repressions by military and anti-communist authoritarian regimes in South America to the repressions by post-communist regimes in the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia; and as Wolff shows, even the victory of revolution and reforms in tyrannical and discriminatory regimes like South African apartheid was contingent on secret compromises between revolutionary leaders and the International Monetary Fund to integrate into the global economy.

The book’s translator, Merjaneh Fashahi, born in 1953 in Tehran, pursued her studies in Political and Social Sciences at the University of Tehran and then at the Universities of Cambridge and Göttingen, and is engaged in translation from German and English. Other works by Ms. Fashahi in political economy and regional studies will also be published by Mardomnegār Publishing.

The book “Loan for Destruction,” which was previously published by another publisher, has been released by Mardomnegār Publishing in 240 pages, quarto size, priced at four hundred thousand Tomans.