Abstract
Dear Sir, Dr Harvey Whiteford's article ‘Why would a psychiatrist work in a bank?’ [1] omits a critique of his new employer, the World Bank. A substantial body of scholarly criticism now exists concerning the activities of the World Bank, in relation to globalisation, the creation of unmanageable Third World debt, environmental destruction, and the worsening health of developing nations [2–5]. The bank generally has not been concerned with being ‘sensitive to the demographic, cultural, economic and political environments of the Bank's client countries’ (p. 80). To not mention or address such criticisms looks like a whitewash. By contrast, to acknowledge and debate them would be to indicate that psychiatry has a legitimate interest in such matters and is not unquestioningly prepared to be the handmaid of capital. Moreover, in an era in which national governments and democratic processes are increasingly bypassed by international banks (and in particular the IMF, to which the World Bank is affiliated), to engage in such debate is to exercise a precious democratic right.