While Life & Debt is an excellent historical documentary explaining how the old IMF and World Bank operations worked at the time and did leave Jamaica in worse shape than when it began, it needs to be put in its historical perspective. The opening narrative of Life & Debt is taken from "A Small Place", a 1988 novel. The world has undergone significant changes since then.Originally Posted by Rasta Animal
Michael Manley was interviewed for the documentary and he died back in 1997. Released in April of 2001, the IMF has undergone restructuring with less "draconian" rules in 2005 and then again in 2011.
I am in no way defending the IMF, but facts being what they are, they have eased up a bit on their old dictatorial way of micro-managing the economy's of their loaner countries.
Since that movie was released Jamaica has gotten out of "partnership" with the IMF under one administration and then back into "partnership" with the IMF under the following administration. When the admin changed again, the government renegotiated the terms of the loans from the IMF, which was unthinkable back in 2001 when the movie was released.
The free trade zones mentioned prominently in the documentary have changed substantially as well since 2001, with the current free trade zone rules bearing little resemblance to the rules in effect 17 years ago.
