[...] the IMF's legal framework proved the perfect vehicle for the creation of austerity. The IMF, as a legal creation standing above states, is able to impose a set of policy choices from above. These policies are couched as legal obligations, which bind the recipient state. In this way, in a very real sense, the IMF - as a body entirely inaccessible to popular mobilisation - removes economic choices from the possibility of popular control. At the same time, the IMF juridically frames austerity policies; treating them not as objects of class struggle, but simply as technocratic requirements of growth.