Two of the biggest players on the world financial stage debated last night at the ARCO Forum about solutions for the major problem of globalization: the rich are getting richer, and the poor, poorer.

International financier George Soros and Stone Professor of International Trade Jeffrey D. Sachs '76 both blamed the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and similar institutions for the growing wealth disparities, but they disagreed on what needed to be changed.

Sachs said the IMF, which makes loans to developing nations, should be all but abolished because it is a pawn of U.S. interests. Soros said reforming the IMF would be more effective.

But the two agreed that globalization has benefited what Soros called the "core" of the world economy--developed nations like the United States--more than the "periphery." They also predicted a worldwide economic slowdown.

Soros, who has made much of his money through speculation on world financial markets, said global capitalism now puts "the periphery . . . at great disadvantage" on an uneven playing field.

"And the idea of leveling the playing field is not acceptable at present to this international community," he said.

In particular, Soros blamed the IMF for the Russian financial crisis of 1999, for holding the nascent capitalist government there to expectations it could not have met.

It was "one of the great tragedies of recent history," he says.