CAMBRIDGE, England -- Freedom of speech died a little death last week. The World Bank Group announced (on a Saturday, so that it did not get much attention) that it was canceling its annual European conference on development economics. The meeting was canceled because the global protest movement that disrupted the group's annual meetings in Washington last year had threatened to disrupt this get-together too. The Bank described the cancellation, in a twisted piece of logic, as taking "a stand against this kind of threat to free discussion." It seems strange to support free discussion by canceling a meeting.
Maybe the protesters are right and it is time to close the World Bank down. There is a good case for doing so, but it's not the one put forward by the floating crap game of new-wave protesters. The case for closing the Bank down is that there is really no logic left for keeping it open.
The World Bank Group is made up of four organizations: the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the International Development Association, the International Finance Corporation and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency. None of them can justify their existence as expensively run, Washington-based multilateral organizations, staffed mostly by second-rate and overpaid bureaucrats.