The Fund told the battered, confused Russian population that its "shock therapy" programmes would bring US-style capitalism to Russia. He argued that global capitalism needs periodic state intervention to stay afloat. The IMF was created to put his arguments into practice.For 30 years, that's pretty much how the IMF operated. It was fairly successful, and global economic growth was far higher than in the previous few decades. But then, in the early 1980s, the IMF was hijacked by a group of market fundamentalists.

Economists associated with the Thatcher and Reagan revolutions were convinced that Keynes' vision had in fact been a "Socialist nightmare", so they declared that a return to the philosophy of the 1930s was necessary.They turned the IMF's purpose inside out. Instead of promoting government action to turn around slowing economies, they made their loans to poor countries conditional on governments paralysing themselves through slashed public spending and the privatisation of key services. This process is politely called "structural adjustment".The new IMF-ers imposed on the world a massive economic experiment - and we are now in a position to judge the results. The collapse of global capitalism had taught the world that preaching "austerity" and "balanced budgets" at all costs led to mass unemployment, the growth of psychotic political movements and world war.Standing at the graveside of the old liberalism, they turned to the philosophy of John Maynard Keynes. His task can only be understood in the context of the IMF's history. It was founded at the Bretton Woods conference in 1944, where global elites publicly acknowledged the lessons of the 1930s. He is the next managing director of the International Monetary Fund, and he has the lives of hundreds of millions of people in his hands. He takes charge of a glittering Washington-based financial institution that is intellectually bankrupt.

Yet he is about to acquire more power over the poorest people in the world than Tony Blair, Thabo Mbeki or any democratically elected leader on earth. It's why the Scots can afford free university tuition and residential care and we can't, he said.So, yes. If we gave Scotland "total fiscal autonomy" (as long as we keep the oil), we could reduce English income tax by 4 pence in the pound, and we wouldn't have Scottish questions in the House any more. Unless you are a keen follower of the business pages, you probably haven't heard of Rodrigo Rato. I sense a majority coming on.simoncarr75 hotmail More from Simon Carr. The point being? Nicholas Winterton added to Mr Taylor's point by claiming Lord Barnett (the inventor of the Barnett Formula by which Scottish barbers are paid) wants his formula abolished, as English voters get 20 per cent less per head than north of the border.