> From: Chris Burford <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> What are the openings in the North therefore for reform of the
> international systems even if Patrick and his allies would denounce them as
> timid and reformist?
> Of the top of my head I can think of two: the consumer movement in the
> North, and the interests of capital.
3: The coming crash? The kind of dramatic power shift between
state and financial capital that seventy years ago led to the
semi-dissolution of JP Morgan's empire?
> ... Therefore all the demands for boycotting the institutions of global
> governance rather than reforming them, will merely add to the balance of
> forces by which they are reformed.
Chris, in your world-view, is there anything that doesn't,
dialectically to be sure, lead to ever-concentrating "finance
capital," and thus a world state, and thus gradualist socialism? Is
there a counterfactual to be found here?
> Rather than regretting the different perspective of progressives in the
> North and the South it would therefore be better to argue, including
> fiercely at times, about what the likely development of the reform agenda
> will be, and how different consituencies can be brought it to shape it in
> different ways.
Ok, you've seen my JWSR paper on these various agenda options. What's
the next level of debate then? The SA left is going ahead in concrete
ways on debt repudiation, defunding the IMF/WB, no new WTO round,
capital controls, and a new "Africa Consensus" on people-centred
development. Your team?
Incidentally for the sake of some of the overconfident SA students
who like Chris believe the embryonic world-state can be reformed,
I've been putting together a list of primary sources dealing
especially with the financial prospects. My three categories are
very porous, so not to worry about that. But if anyone wants to
add or subtract anything important, I'll be grateful:
Further reading on the debate over
world economic and financial reform
1. Washington Consensus statements about world
economy/finance:
Robert Rubin, `Strengthening the Architecture of
the International Financial System,' Remarks to
the Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, 14
April 1998.
Laurence Summers, `The Global Economic
Situation and What it Means for the United
States,' Remarks to the National Governors'
Association, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 4 August
1998.
Stanley Fischer, `IMF--The Right Stuff,' Financial
Times, 17 December 1997, `In Defence of the
IMF: Specialized Tools for a Specialized Task,'
Foreign Affairs, July-August 1998, and `On the
Need for an International Lender of Last Resort,'
IMF Mimeo, Washington, DC, 3 January 1999.
Michel Camdessus, `The IMF and its Programs in
Asia,' Remarks to the Council on Foreign
Relations, New York, 6 February 1998.
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development, Report of the Working Group on
International Financial Crises, Paris, 1998.
2. Post-Washington Consensus (and other
reformist-reformist) statements about world
economy/finance:
Yilmaz Akyuz, `Taming International Finance,' in
J.Michie and J.G.Smith (Eds), Managing the
Global Economy, Oxford, Oxford University Press,
1995; `The East Asian Financial Crisis: Back to
the Future,' in Jomo K.S. (Ed), Tigers in Trouble,
London, Zed, 1998.
Jagdish Bhagwati, `The Capital Myth: The
Difference between Trade in Widgets and Trade in
Dollars,' Foreign Affairs, 77m, 3, May/June 1998.
Paul Davidson, `Are Grains of Sand in the Wheels
of International Finance Sufficient to do the Job
when Boulders are often Required?,' The
Economic Journal, 107, 1997; `The Case for
Regulating International Capital Flows,' Paper
presented at the Social Market Foundation Seminar
on Regulation of Capital Movements, 17
November 1998.
John Eatwell and Lance Taylor, `International
Capital Markets and the Future of Economic
Policy,' CEPA Working Paper Series III, Working
Paper 9, New School for Social Research, New
York, September 1998
Paul Krugman, `Saving Asia: It's Time to get
RADICAL,' Fortune, 7 September 1998.
Oskar Lafontaine and Christa Mueller, Keine Angst
vor der Globalisierung: Worhlstand und Arbeit
fuer Alle, Bonn, Dietz Verlag, 1998.
Mohamad Mahathir, `The Future of Asia in a
Globalised and Deregulated World,' Speech to the
conference `The Future of Asia,' Tokyo, 4 June
1998.
Jeffrey Sachs, `The IMF is a Power unto Itself,'
Financial Times, 11 December 1997; `The IMF
and the Asian Flu,' The American Prospect,
March-April 1998.
George Soros, The Crisis of Global Capitalism:
The Open Society Endangered, New York, Public
Affairs, 1998.
Joseph Stiglitz, `More Instruments and Broader
Goals: Moving Toward a Post-Washington
Consensus,' WIDER Annual Lecture, Helsinki, 7
January 1998; `Towards a New Paradigm for
Development: Strategies, Policies, and Processes,'
Prebisch Lecture, UN Conference on Trade and
Development, Geneva, 19 October 1998.
James Tobin, `A Proposal for International
Monetary Reform,' The Eastern Economic
Journal, July/October 1978.
James Wolfensohn, `A Proposal for a
Comprehensive Development Framework (A
Discussion Draft),_ Washington, DC, World Bank,
29 January 1999.
3. Critical (often radical, nonreformist-reformist) statements about
world economy/finance:
Samir Amin, Capitalism in the Age of
Globalization, London, Zed, 1997.
Giovanni Arrighi, Terence Hopkins and Immanuel
Wallerstein, Anti-Systemic Movements, London,
Verso, 1989.
Robert Blecker, Taming Global Finance,
Washington, DC, Economic Policy Institute, 1999.
Terry Boswell and Chris Chase-Dunn, The Spiral
of Capitalism and Socialism, Boulder, Lynn
Reiner, 1999.
Robert Brenner, Turbulence in the World
Economy, London, Verso, 1999.
Catherine Caufield, Masters of Illusion, London,
Macmillan, 1997.
Michel Chossudovsky, The Globalisation of
Poverty, London, Zed, 1997.
William Greider, One World Ready or Not,
London, Penguin, 1998.
Robin Hahnel, Panic Rules!, Boston, South End,
1999.
Doug Henwood, Wall Street, London, Verso,
1997.
Ankie Hoogvelt, Globalisation and the
Postcolonial World, London, Macmillan, 1997.
Joshua Karliner, The Corporate Planet, San
Francisco, Sierra Club, 1997.
Jomo K.S. (Ed), Tigers in Trouble, London, Zed,
1998.
John Maynard Keynes, `National Self-Sufficiency,'
Yale Review, 22, 4, 1933.
Michael Lowy, `Globalization and
Internationalism: How Up-to-date is the
Communist Manifesto?,' Monthly Review,
November 1998
Hans-Peter Martin and Harald Schumann, The
Global Trap, London, Zed, 1997.
Kim Moody, Workers in a Lean World, London,
Verso, 1997.
Harry Shutt, The Trouble with Capitalism,
London, Zed, 1999.
Kavaljit Singh, A Citizen's Guide to the
Globalisation of Finance, London, Zed and Delhi,
Madhyam Books, 1998.
Mrinalini Sinha, Donna Guy and Angela
Woollacott (Eds), Feminisms and Internationalism,
Oxford, Blackwell, 1999.
Robert Wade, The Gift of Capital, London, Verso,
1999.
Peter Waterman, Globalisation, Social Movements
and the New Internationalisms, London, Cassell,
1998.
Linda Weiss, The Myth of the Powerless State,
Cambridge, Polity, 1998.
Iris Marion Young, Inclusion and Democracy,
Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999.
Patrick Bond
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * phone: 2711-614-8088
home: 51 Somerset Road, Kensington 2094 South Africa
work: University of the Witwatersrand
Graduate School of Public and Development Management
PO Box 601, Wits 2050, South Africa
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
phone: 2711-488-5917 * fax: 2711-484-2729
