George Will apparently doesn’t see much use in the World Bank, arguing in his column today that the Bank’s poverty-fighting mission is largely outdated, at least for a state-driven organiztion.

Will is quite right to point out that “the prerequisite for growth is free markets allocating private capital to efficient uses.” But that doesn’t mean an obtrusive government institution such as the World Bank is without merit.

As Will says:

Much of what recipient countries save by receiving the bank’s subsidized loans they pay in the costs of “technical assistance,” the euphemism for being required to adopt the social agendas of the rich nations’ governments that fund the bank. Those agendas focus on intrusive government actions on behalf of fashionable causes—the empowerment of women, labor, environmentalism, indigenous peoples, etc.

This isn’t a criticism of the bank, it’s the rationale for the bank. Making the loan process dependent on “the empowerment of women, labor, environmentalism, indigenous peoples, etc.” ties economic development to socio-political progress. That’s why we have these standards, and that’s why the bank works. Why would we ever want to develop and institute an economic system that rewards the oppression of women, over-exploitation of the natural environment, or tyranny over a country’s native people?

More importantly, when did George Will turn in to the third-world populist Dinesh Dsouza?