"Throughout their respective histories, the actions of the Bretton Woods institutions have contributed to degrading the environment, expanding the authoritarian power . . ."

The Progressive/Socialist Hidden Agenda to Reduce Food and Population https://t.co/bGRQd3BY63 @mises @PeterSweden7

— Mark Thornton (@DrMarkThornton) September 8, 2022

Given their track records, it would not be unreasonable to ask why institutions like the IMF, the World Bank, and the WTO are involved in addressing environmental problems in any significant capacity. Throughout their respective histories, the actions of the Bretton Woods institutions have contributed to degrading the environment, expanding the authoritarian power of multinational corporations, and exacerbating social and economic inequality, bankruptcy, indebtedness, food insecurity, malnutrition, and hunger in many poor countries around the world. They have done this by using “their considerable influence to facilitate” the adoption of economic reforms, policies, and trade agreements in “countries on all continents, which has allowed transnational corporations to gain significant control over the world economy” (see Birsen Filip, The Rise of Neo-liberalism and the Decline of Freedom [Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020], pp. 230).

Since the mid-1990s, many of the international agreements and economic reforms promoted by the Bretton Woods institutions have directly contributed to slashing the incomes of small and medium-sized farmers around the world, leading many of them to go bankrupt. In the case of India, this has resulted in approximately “182,936” farmers committing suicide “between 1997 and 2007.” Additionally, a 2020 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed that “farmers are among the most likely to die by suicide, compared with other occupations,” and that “suicide rates overall had increased by 40 percent in less than two decades” among US farmers. In particular, the patenting of seeds and plants allowed under the WTO Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement, which was signed in 1994, has destroyed the livelihoods of many farmers, while benefitting the interests of large corporations and businesses.