I read the article from Alex, and while I understand what he means (I am myself no fan of IMF, or technocrats doing central planning), seems like a lot of his agendas/angers are misplaced, and points to him having his own agendas.

While the basic assertion is valid, that IMF regularly engages with dictatorial regimes, I fail to see what's IMFs fault here. Was the IMF meant to be like the CIA, in charge of regime change and coupe whenever it deems appropriate? IMF, purely as a financial institution, deals with the regognised state representative of each nation. Whether those representatives enjoy or were elected via democratic support, is simply outside the IMF mandate. IMF's job is not primarily to meddle in the internal politics of a nation to satisfy layers and layers of sub-national governmental entities or individual families. Internal political reform is still firmly the responsibility of the individual nations and their people (to the extend they care or have any awareness).

Then, the rest of the demands of IMF? They come into play only when a country is seeking bail out from the IMF. A creditor does have full right to audit, and, to some extent, control the debtor's decision as the creditor is exposed to the risk of debtor's actions. If a country is financially self-sufficient enough (by which I do not mean isolated, but one that does not need aid or loan from the IMF), then it is fully sovereign to implement its domestic agendas as it pleases. What exactly is surprising or unexpected in it?

I am not defending the IMF, but trying to be objective here as much as possible. In general, I have no love lost for IMF if more countries just decide they can conduct their own trade settlement and balance the budget just fine without IMF, hence choosing to totally opt out. That will significantly reduce IMF influence as a lender of last resort and that is also where Bitcoin will have a chance to flourish as a final global trade settlement layer.

But, if a country X goes hat in hand to another entity Y (which may be IMF, or the CCP or ECB or whatever) asking for money, then X has to be ready to sacrifice part of its sovereignty and decision making. There is no two way around it. You cannot be a debtor seeking a bailout and favour, while acting strong and mighty as if you are in charge of your destiny.