Gernot Koehler wrote:
...
Patrick,
I don’t think self-sufficient national Keynesianism is a good flag to wave at
this moment in history. I believe that Samir Amin’s concept of building a
polycentric global economy is still a good one. Throwing out
neo-liberal/neo-conservative globalism is not the same as building a world of
self-sufficient nations.
Well dear Gernot, old friend, can you please point to ANY progress being
made towards either global governance reforms (in finance or ANYwhere
else), OR the polycentrism that Samir sometimes talks about? I spent a
week with him in Caracas recently, and he has backtracked from any hints
from roughly five years ago, that such polycentric processes could arise
from the rubble of the North (including Europe which initially he had
seen as a progressive force). There is a bit of hope for Latin American
regionalism, if the oil price plunge does not derail Chavez's financial
options (e.g. Bank of the South).
On the matter of global governance, did you see the little scam in Doha
that just finished yesterday? Have a look, below, in a friendly debate
I'm having with NGOs about the merits of UN Financing for Development
blahblahblah.
Under the adverse prevailing neolib/neocon-dominated balance of forces,
it's really ONLY possible to talk about progress coming from genuine
sites of countervailing power, which would be national states once they
are under left (or even centre-left) control...
Cheers,
Patrick
***
Sounds like the meeting in Doha that ended yesterday was a total waste
of time and airfares and CO2 emissions. Is that the case? I've been
perusing Doha documents (e.g.
http://www.un.org/esa/ffd/doha/press/ffd6.pdf and
http://www.un.org/esa/ffd/doha/press/zeulpressconf.pdf and
http://www.un.org/esa/ffd/doha/press/ffd7.pdf), and I see that the
meetings's grand accomplishment is to agree on another meeting - five
years from now.
(And on the matter of Strauss-Kahn and Zoellick, ooops, I guess my mock
letter was more persuasive, sorry about that...) :-)
http://www.un.org/esa/ffd/doha/listofparticipants.pdf
INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND
Representatives
Mr. Murilo Portugal, Deputy Managing Director
Ms. Antoinette Monsio Sayeh, Director, African Department
Mr. Hugh Bredenkamp, Deputy Director, Strategy, Policy, and Review
Department
Ms. Martine Guerguil, Division Chief, Strategy, Policy, and Review
Department
Ms. Jennifer Bisping, External Relations Officer, External Relations
Department
Mr. Gerd Schwartz, Advisor, Office of the Deputy Managing Director
Mr. Elliott Harris, Advisor, Strategy, Policy, and Review Department,
and Special
Representative to the United Nations
Mr. Sanjeev Gupta, Senior Advisor, Fiscal Affairs Department
***
(Now TWO letters have emerged for sign-on to the International Monetary
Fund's leader, regarding next steps in the world financial crisis.
Please choose. It's true that the second letter has more signatories -
the first only has mine - but maybe that will change in coming hours.)
LETTER 1)
Please consider signing this letter which urges the IMF Managing
Director, Mr. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, to boycott the Doha Review
Conference on Financing for Development.
Deadline is Monday November 24, by 3 pm US Eastern time. (Please send
sign-on endorsement to [EMAIL PROTECTED])
Background
While initially scheduled to attend the Doha Financing for Development
(FfD) Review in Doha, the IMF Managing Director Mr. Dominique
Strauss-Kahn has hinted he is no longer planning to attend.
This is most fortunate, especially given the extraordinary influence
that had earlier been given to the IMF in the FfD drafting process, and
the counterproductive nature of the FfD process to date. By withdrawing
representation at the highest level, the gesture would send a political
signal that seeks to distance the IMF from the UN process, as it enters
into critical matters of reform of international finance and at a very
critical juncture in the negotiations addressing such issues at this
moment in New York.
That distancing would give some hope that the new team at the UN -
especially left and centre-left advisors to General Assembly President
Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann (including Joseph Stiglitz, Jomo KS, Maude
Barlow, Leonardo Boff, François Houtart, Noam Chomsky, Ramsey Clark,
Richard Falk and Howard Zinn) - can break through the inherited FfD
nonsense and come up with a genuine alternative to the "Bretton Woods 2"
elite project of financial system relegitimisation begun at the G20
meeting on November 14-15 in Washington.
The letter:
Mr. Dominique Strauss-Kahn
Managing Director
International Monetary Fund
Dear Mr. Strauss-Kahn,
We, the undersigned, are writing to urge you to boycott the Doha Review
Conference on Financing for Development.
On November 29, governments of the world will gather in Doha, Qatar, to
reassert their 2002 Monterrey Consensus commitments to “eradicate
poverty, achieve sustained economic growth and promote sustainable
development as we advance to a fully inclusive and equitable global
economic system,” and evaluate progress.
We know that then, as now, these words are fakery. We know that in
reality, globalisation and more rapid trade/investment/financial
integration have generated worsening inequality, exclusivity and
ecological degradation. We know that military expenditures have
exploded, and that in the last two years, OECD aid payments to the South
are dramatically lower - and we know such payments consist
overwhelmingly of 'phantom aid' in any case. We know that the IMF has
also spent the period since Monterrey squeezing debt payments out of
wretched countries and imposing old-fashioned structural adjustment
programmes, including on your very few new borrowers like Hungary (whose
civil servants you recently denied a 13th cheque this year as part of
loan conditionality). We know that most middle-income countries that
could afford to, began rejecting your advice and repaying IMF loans
early, leaving your institution in the red, forced to privatise 15% of
your economists. The fact that only a few weeks ago your institution was
called the "Turkish Monetary Fund" - in honour of your sole major
borrower - meant that you are fortunate now, to potentially be rescued
as a lender by the worst financial crisis since 1929.
The Monterrey process was unique in that it represented a new and fresh
type of fakery, one that sought to confuse and distract delegates from
governments, global institutions with different economic
responsibilities, such as the one you head, development
responsibilities, civil society and the private sector. Its
multi-stakeholder nature generated the banal, meaningless blather - with
no accountability - that we inevitably encounter in global policy-making
in a changed - and changing - world.
After all, since the 1996 Montreal protocol banning ChloroFluoroCarbons,
there has not been any substantial progress made in global governance
venues on any of the major issues confronting the world, including
militarism, trade, United Nations governance, Bretton Woods Institution
reform, the climate crisis, nuclear non-proliferation, nonrenewable
resources depletion, racism, gender discrimination, and so on.
More importantly, in the collective agreement to build those bridges at
the global level, Monterrey also paved the ground for talking left and
walking right at the domestic levels of governments. In the South,
finance ministers returned from the 2002 conference in Mexico full of
self-important, inflated rhetoric, which (along with the temporary
commodity boom from 2002-08) allowed them to confuse local
constituencies into believing that taking more Washington Consensus
medicine would lead to more generous financing terms.
In the North, aid ministers could continue going to G8 conferences -
especially Gleneagles in 2005 - making empty promises they knew from
experience in Monterrey would not be taken seriously except by naive
journalists and NGOs. The roles of the IMF and World Bank were
relegitimised, in the immediate wake of a period of deep crisis, during
the late 1990s Asian fiasco, when your institution was considered the
most destructive economic force in the world, not counting US Treasury
Secretary Lawrence Summers (now a renewed threat as chief economic
advisor to US President-elect Barack Obama).
In this sense, the Monterrey Consensus represented not a static, one-off
event, but a dynamic one. It established an innovative process for
dialogue: dynamic enough to allow for the adjustments that any learning
process brings, but solid enough to ensure the continuity of a global
partnership. Such a partnership continues to be premised upon coopting
foolish Third World politicians and civilised society from international
NGOs.
Indeed, the global partnership between elites and aspirant elites is
crucial to distracting more serious initiatives - mainly by a sometimes
uncivil society - for progressive social change premised not on a
ridiculous harmony model, but on recognition of a logical conflict
between neoliberal/neoconservative rulers and capitalists on the one
side, and the mass of the world's people and our environment on the other.
By not attending the Doha FfD meeting, you will offer a chance to
transcend the Monterrey partnership, so that a genuine alliance of left
and centre-left forces can be built up, to battle the degradation
associated with financial crisis and worsening austerity, that is now
beginning to be felt around the world, especially if the Obama
government attempts to revive neoliberal imperialism as might reasonably
be anticipated by his senior appointments.
Though unforeseen at that time, the Doha Review Conference will take
place at a time when debunking the global governance myth is more
crucial than ever. A global financial crisis, the largest anyone alive
has seen, is threatening to undo globalisation's destructive march, but
only if common-sense steps are taken to weaken the existing Bretton
Woods Institutions and all that they represent. The Conference also
takes place amidst global crisis in food, energy and climate. The
Monterrey follow-up offers the best hope of generating confidence in
national states' abilities to reverse their vulnerability to global
finance.
That will require harvesting the broad-based knowledge, ownership, and
political support that a response to these exceptional times calls for,
and drawing upon positive recent national experiences such as default on
illegal/illegitimate debts (as did Argentina in 2002 and as Ecuador now
intends), successful imposition of exchange controls (as did Malaysia in
1998 and Venezuela in 2003), and financial reregulation and bank
nationalisation (as are so many countries doing now). Recognition that
national governments must regain control over financial systems and in
the process must delink their economies from the most destructive
characteristics of global finance, is to recall what Keynes himself
advised: "let goods be homespun whenever it is reasonably and
conveniently possible, and, above all, let finance be primarily
national" (Yale Review, 22, 4, 1933, p.769).
But developing such insights within the notoriously repressive
conference venue at Doha - where in 2001 the World Trade Organisation
received a temporary new lease on life - can only work if the most
dogmatic, reactionary partners leave the table. In spite of the name of
the political party from which you hail, the French 'Socialist Party',
you qualify. Your institution's advice (in an Article IV consultation)
to South Africa on 22 October, for example, was to "persevere with steps
to open the economy to greater international competition," just days
after the most extreme outflows of finance in many months, at a time
South Africa's current account deficit was so great that international
agencies were lowering its credit rating. This is the kind of Old
Washington perspective that should be missing from Doha, if a solid new
global financial architecture, built on the existing powers of national
states, is to be constructed.
It is, therefore, with the utmost concern that we write to you to urge
you to boycott the Doha Financing for Development Review. We understand
you are seriously considering not to attend this conference, even though
you had committed at a very early stage. We believe were you to go ahead
with this threat, it would send the correct signal about the seriousness
with which the IMF takes the challenges that we face, and how it
perceives its role as a heretofore utterly destructive force against the
international community of nations and organizations. Your boycott of
Doha would certainly allow for new, more effective leadership in global
financial crisis response efforts.
Sign-on letter urging IMF Managing Director to boycott Doha FFD Review
Name (country)
Patrick Bond (South Africa)|
...
LETTER 2)
Please consider signing this letter which urges the IMF Managing
Director, Mr. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, to attend the Doha Review
Conference on Financing for Development.
http://www.ifiwatchnet.org/campaigns/?q=en/node/245/signs
Deadline is Monday November 24, by 3 pm US Eastern time.
Background
While initially scheduled to attend the Doha Financing for Development
Review in Doha, the IMF Managing Director Mr. Dominique Strauss-Kahn has
hinted he is no longer planning to attend.
This is very unfortunate and difficult to explain, especially given the
extraordinary influence that has been given to the IMF in the drafting
process (in fact, the IMF is on record making suggestions on the same
footing with member states, even though only member states are supposed
to formally make drafting suggestions and even though its intervention,
with such representation regime, means an unfair advantage for some
large developed countries in the negotiation). By withdrawing
representation at the highest level, the gesture would send a political
signal that seeks to undermine the strength of the UN process as it
enters into critical matters of reform of international finance and at a
very critical juncture in the negotiations addressing such issues at
this moment in New York.
The letter:
Mr. Dominique Strauss-Kahn
Managing Director
International Monetary Fund
Dear Mr. Strauss-Kahn,
We, the undersigned, are writing to urge you to attend the Doha Review
Conference on Financing for Development.
On November 29, governments of the world will gather in Doha, Qatar, to
reassert their 2002 Monterrey Consensus commitments to “eradicate
poverty, achieve sustained economic growth and promote sustainable
development as we advance to a fully inclusive and equitable global
economic system,” and evaluate progress.
The Monterrey process was unique in that it represented a new and fresh
type of multilateralism, one that sought to build bridges across
governments, global institutions with different economic
responsibilities, such as the one you head, development
responsibilities, civil society and the private sector. Its
multi-stakeholder nature generated the open, fresh approach needed for
facing the challenges of global policy-making in a changed—and
changing-- world. More importantly, in the collective agreement to build
those bridges at the global level it also paved the ground for building
those bridges at the domestic levels of governments.
In this sense, the Monterrey Consensus represented not a static, one-off
event, but a dynamic one. It established an innovative process for
dialogue: dynamic enough to allow for the adjustments that any learning
process brings, but solid enough to ensure the continuity of a global
partnership.
Though unforeseen at that time, the Doha Review Conference will take
place at a time when those principles and commitments are more relevant
than ever. A global financial crisis, the largest anyone alive has seen,
is threatening to undo progress in poverty reduction and achievement of
MDGs of several decades. The Conference also takes place amidst global
crisis in food, energy and climate. The Monterrey follow-up offers the
best hope of harvesting the broad-based knowledge, ownership, and
political support that a response to these exceptional times call for.
But it cannot work without all the partners at the table.
It is, therefore, with the utmost concern that we write to you to urge
you to attend the Doha Financing for Development Review. We understand
you are seriously considering not to attend this conference, even though
you had committed at a very early stage. We believe were you to delegate
this responsibility, it would send the wrong signal about the
seriousness with which the IMF takes the challenges that we face, and
how it perceives its role as a partner in solidarity with the
international community of nations and organizations. It would certainly
undermine its claims to leadership in global financial crisis response
efforts.
Sign-on letter urging IMF Managing Director to attend Doha FFD Review
Name (country)
SAYOUTY El Hassan
Savini lorenzo
Sabine Mèdétadji (Benin)
Jean-Pierre Dégué Social Watch Bénin
Elsa Duhagon (Uruguay)
David Obot (Uganda)
Arjun Karki
Abdulkadir Khalif Sh. Yusuf (Somalia)
Verena Winkler Belgium
Soeurs Unies à l'Oeuvre Thomasia Agbodjogbé
Social Watch Bénin SEP
Nouvelles Perspectives Afrique (Bénin) Sabine Mèdétadji
Social Watch Roberto Bissio
Coastal Development Partnership (CDP), Bangladesh M M Mahbub Hasan
NURRU David Obot
LDC Watch Arjun Karki
Center of Concern Aldo Caliari
VOICE/ Bangladesh Ahmed Swapan
Somali Organisation for Community Development Acti
EUROSTEP Belgium
EEPA Belgium
New Rules for Global Finance Coalition United Stat
Soeurs Unies à l'Oeuvre
Coastal Development Partnership (CDP)
Network of Ugandan Researchers and Research Users
Somali Organisation for Community Development Activ
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