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• Hooray for the G20?

  September 25, 2009 @ 1:50 pm | by Bryan

  

  “The fact that 20 or so individuals right now are determining economic trade policies for four to five billion people just isn’t right,” Mr. Griffith said. “That’s why we’re here.”

  Most news organisations are making a big deal over the fact that the G8 is being replaced by the G20. The fact that a handful of the most powerful ‘developing nations’ are being added to the elite club that gets to set the economic rules for the rest is supposed to represent the dawn of a new inclusive era or something. It does no such thing.

  Let’s take a look at some of these ‘developing nations’. China. India. South Africa. Turkey. Brazil. These aren’t exactly the nations that I would pick were I trying to get a good understanding of the concerns of the typical state in the South. China is China. India, while being home to some of the world’s poorest people, is also incredibly wealthy. So much so, the Indians not only sent a rocket to the moon, they were also the ones who recently discovered water there. They’re not exactly Malawi or Haiti – nations trying to come up with a formula for growing enough food to meet domestic needs. As for Brazil, the OECD has been trying to woo them for a while. The OECD, you may have noticed, have not expressed much interest in Cuba or Paraguayi. The G20 is so inclusive that neither Nigeria nor Egypt, Africa’s second and third wealthiest nations, were deemed worthy. And yet, just about all of Europe is represented there by the EU. But just to make sure, France, Germany, Italy and Britain get their own special seats. The same is true of North America – the US, Canada and Mexico are all members.

  So just to re-cap, the G20 is made up of Europe, North America, and everyone else with too much economic clout to ignore. And what happens when only the powerful get to make the rules? Let’s look at the response to the recent financial crisis, shall we? As was recently demonstrated on the excellent three part BBC television series, The Love of Money, the politically powerful got together with the economically powerful to craft a solution to the crisis. Unsurprisingly, it was decided that to avoid catastrophe, the economically powerful could not be allowed to fail. Equally unsurprisingly, the chosen mechanism of their rescue was a transfer of wealth from the rest, to those deemed to large to fail. Could it be that the proposal to transfer wealth to struggling mortgage holders instead of, or in tandem with the banks bailout, would have got more of a hearing were struggling mortgage holders part of the deliberations? Hoping that China, Brazil or even South Africa will represent Malawi’s economic interests is like expecting AIB or Bank of Ireland to ask the Finance Minister to consider my local credit union’s needs, and give some of the taxpayer money allocated to the banks to St. Anthony’s Credit Union instead. I’m not saying it couldn’t happen, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

  Like Trevor Griffith, I have serious problems with a small group from the most powerful nations making potentially life and death decisions for the rest of the planet. If however, that’s the direction the world is going to take, then at least let’s be completely honest about it and get rid of the charade that is the United Nations General Assembly. Maybe let’s get rid of the UN altogether? It can’t be that important if the real decision makers use it as a pit stop en-route to G20 meetings.

• Democracy: in word and in deed

  June 29, 2009 @ 10:34 am | by Bryan

  A few days ago:

  

  Yesterday:

  

  President Manuel Zelaya of Hondurus has been ousted. What fascinates me is the fact that the coup is being legitimised as a democracy saving act. In short, the perpetrators argue that Zelaya was a megalomaniac in the making. The army, judiciary and others simply took preemptive measures against a leader with dictatorial designs.

  I’m always amazed at how the language of ‘democracy’ is co-opted by various power groups, especially in the developing world. It’s seen as a legitimising ointment almost. If your actions can somehow be linked to the constitution, or free speech, or better still, the people’s rights, then they’re okay. So on one hand, the fact that Hugo Chavez has taken such a liking to his job that he wants the option to remain in it indefinitely is okay. It’s okay because people voted for the necessary constitutional changes in a referendum, and as we all know, ‘people’, ‘referendum’ and ‘vote’ are some of the most powerful words in the democracy lexicon. On the other hand, Zelaya had to go because he was going to fiddle with the constitution (another important democracy word). In reality all he did was ask people to vote on the prospect of a later referendum on constitutional change. The language of democracy can be used to cast the act of democracy in an undemocratic light.

  Which begs the question, is democracy, especially in regions of the world with comparably less experience with it, little more than a façade? Is it just a mask behind which power hides? In Hondurus at least, it seems that the old alliance between the military and the middle class got tired of the charade, and for a brief moment, removed the mask.

• Alternatives

  June 26, 2009 @ 10:46 am | by Bryan

  Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa blamed capitalism for the global economic mess. No surprise there. Left leaning leaders of Latin American countries have a tendency to say that sort of thing. Capitalism is a problem. White guys with blue eyes created the recession. We’ve heard it all before.

  That said, Correa and some of his colleagues went a step further. According to Reuters,

  “Patching up the Bretton Woods system, which we do not control, makes no sense for (developing) countries,” Correa said in a speech on the second day of the conference.
  Reforming the IMF and World Bank “would be an insufficient stopgap solution,” he said, adding that “we are faced with a crisis unlike those (previously) provoked by capitalism.”
  If the Bretton Woods institutions cannot be abolished, he said, then they should be changed and given less authority over the world’s poor countries. More financial decision-making power, Correa said, should go to the United Nations instead.

  That’s more potent than your run of the mill ‘capitalism is bad’ statement. Yet even this rather more radical stance is not new. From about the 50s onwards, the developing world has been trying to fight the ‘establishment’ view on development, and the rules of global financial and economic governance. There have been a plethora of statements, pledges, plans and even alternative organisations set up to combat the influence of the Western dominated Bretton Woods institutions. But the outcome is always the same.

  Again, according to Reuters,

  The final proposals, watered down from an initial draft that was prepared by [UN General Assembly President and former Nicaragua foreign minister] D’Escoto and rejected by Western powers as too radical, include a call for reforming the IMF.
  But the only specific reform they call for is that the decision-making power of emerging market and developing states be increased in the next IMF quota review by early 2011.

  Sometimes I wonder why the likes of D’Escoto bother. At best, these measures get some lip service while nothing really changes. More often than not, they are just ignored and treated with contempt. Which begs the question, is it possible to offer a development paradigm that is antithetical to that of the IMF and World Bank? What more have it adopted and allowed to succeed?

  Are real alternatives, real departures to the status quo, possible? Or is the best that someone like D’Escoto can hope for a haggling session that ends with a statement of the intent to give up, at some undisclosed occasion in the future, a few crumbs?

• Are there alternatives?

  May 29, 2009 @ 8:51 pm | by Bryan

  On Monday, Trinity College Dublin hosted among others, Dr. Louis Kasekende, Chief Economist of the African Development Bank. Dr. Kasekende gave an interesting talk on Africa’s economic past, current condition, and her prospects.

  Most interesting for me was his economic view of things. Africa has had a difficult relationship with the ‘developed world’. Since the movement to end colonisation, there has traditionally been a desire on the part of Africa’s elites to see a change in the structure of the global political economy. Thabo Mbeki played a huge role in changing this. He was probably the single most important figure in the establishment of NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa’s Development), which essentially drops the demand for radical change in the structure of the global economy and brings Africa in line with ‘mainstream’ economic thought on development. The same thinking that brought about the IMF’s structural adjustment policies which were roundly condemned by African leaders about a decade ago.

  Fast forward to yesterday. Trinity again hosted Dr. Luiz de Mello, a Senior Economist with the OECD. His public lecture was essentially on the same topic as Dr. Kasekende’s, only Dr. de Mello was talking about Brazil. The basic gist of the de Mello lecture was that Brazil is doing really well because the country has embraced structural adjustment and it will continue to do well provided it embraces the free market neoclassical approach to economics even tighter. As only an economist of that ideological hue could, de Mello basically reduced every challenge and success in Brazil to factors affecting supply and demand, best handled of course by the market. At least that’s what it sounded like to me. Like Africa, not too long ago, Latin America was on the forefront of the movement to reform the global political economy. Today, not only has most of the region seemingly accepted the status quo, it is exporting apostles of the free market doctrine to other regions.

  What really got me thinking was my brief conversation with Dr. Kasekende after his talk. When I pressed him on the fact that NEPAD represents a very real ideological departure from the past, his response seemed to be a Thatcheresque TINA (there is no alternative). When I suggested that proposed African alternatives that never saw the light of day were now being overlooked by Africans themselves, the response I got sounded like TINA said differently.

  Which brings me to the heart of the matter. Are there alternatives, or was Thatcher right? I know that alternatives, in the form of ideas on paper, exist. But supposing that ‘conventional wisdom’ takes a certain stance on an issue, can the minority, or a weak majority, propose an alternative that gets a fair hearing? Or will they eventually have their representatives subsumed into the thinking of the powerful? Depending on how those questions are answered, the position taken by Kasekende, de Mello and hundreds of thousands like them represents either a convergence of thinking on the right answer, or a Foulcauldian process at work (power defining knowledge).

• Lula’s … remark

  March 27, 2009 @ 1:48 pm | by Bryan

  

  Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, right, shakes hands with Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president, prior to a news conference at the Alvorado Palace in Brasilia, Brazil March 26. Photo: Adriano Machado/Bloomberg News

  The sensible side of me thinks it would be best to leave Lula’s statement alone. It’s likely to land me in trouble, especially since I’m not appalled by it. Still … it’s a subject that’s worth discussing.

  Brazil’s President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva stoked controversy when, speaking about the world’s economic crisis, he said the following:

  “It is a crisis caused and encouraged by the irrational behaviour of white people with blue eyes who before the crisis appeared to know everything, but are now showing that they know nothing … As I do not know any black or indigenous bankers I can only say it is not possible for this part of mankind, which is victimised more than any other, to pay for the crisis.”

  Justifiably, some commentators are unhappy at what they see as a racist statement. I think there are two important things to look at. Is the above racist? More importantly, what are the implications of the fact that the leader of one of the largest ‘emerging nations’ has no problem saying that standing besides Gordon Brown?

  Years ago, there was an hilarious South African sit-com called Suburban Bliss. It revolved around a black family that had just moved into a white neighbourhood after the 1994 democratic elections. The granny of the family, mama Mloyi (I think that was her name), had an ongoing feud with an old white neighbour (I forget his name). In one episode she insults her rival and he rightly accuses her of racism. Her response is that she can’t possibly be a racist since she loves black people.

  I think Lula’s ‘white people with blue eyes’ line was inappropriate and undiplomatic, but I don’t think it was racist. Is that because I share mama Mloyi’s views on what constitutes racism? I hope not. I don’t think so. Off course there are black bankers. There are plenty of bankers of all hues and nationalities who were part of the financial machine that has crippled the real economy. In that respect, Lula’s statement is plain wrong. But were you to pick up a copy of Fortune, or watch a day’s worth of CNBC, you would have to be blind to miss the validity of Lula’s claim.

  What interests and maybe even concerns me is the fact that he raised the issue and articulated it in those terms. I wonder if it was really for the ‘domestic market’, as Gordon Brown suggested, or if he was sending a signal to the rest of the world. Lula is approaching the end of his tenure as Brazil’s president. I doubt that he needs to dish out ‘cheap shots’ for political milage domestically. I wonder if instead his wasn’t a retort to the Obama suggestion that every country with the means to do so should help shoulder the burden of the recession.

  If the other emerging nations take a similar stance, the upcoming G20 summit could turn out to be an exciting one for all the wrong reasons.

• Interesting times

  February 16, 2009 @ 11:46 am | by Bryan

  

  Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez salutes during a news conference. Reuters/Tomas Bravo

  This is already turning out to be a very interesting week. It’s only Monday, and already, two very significant things have happened in the political world. Hugo Chavez got permission to stay in power for as long as his people will have him. At about the same time, another controversial but equally charismatic leader, South Africa’s Jacob Zuma, managed to get Nelson Mandela to campaign for him.

  There are many things I admire about Hugo Chavez. He is an impressive leader. He has done a lot of good for his country’s poor and indigenous populations. And who, having watched Kim Bartley and Donnacha O’Briain’s The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, can be unsympathetic towards him? Chavez has never really had a fair hearing in much of the West’s media. That said, I think the referendum that he has just won was ill conceived. The result, I fear, may haunt Venezuela in the coming years.

  Respect for a people’s right to self determination means accepting their decisions. In that respect, I think it is wrong to accuse Chavez of totalitarianism. He has a democratic mandate now to stay in power for as long as he can win elections. Whether some of us like it or not, we have to accept the decision taken by Venezuela’s majority. That does not mean, however, that we have to pretend we think what has happened is a good thing.

  As trite as this may sound, power does corrupt, and absolute power… Chavez may not have absolute power, but the potential for unlimited terms can only have a corrupting effect. And then there is the megalomaniac syndrome that revolutionaries and freedom fighters are given to. Having overthrown the previous order, these people begin to think that the revolution will unravel if they are no longer at the centre of things. This too has a corrupting effect. It is a pity that Chavez does not have confidence in the people around him to continue the social program he has begun. In thinking that only he can guarantee Venezuela’s success, he has demonstrated the degree to which power has already corrupted him. In taking this course, he has almost guaranteed that he will fulfill the expectations of his fiercest critics.

  As for Jacob Zuma, I’m sure that he will be praying that Mandela, a virtual, modern day deity, has the power to cleanse past sin and make all things new. I can’t wait to see if his prayers are answered. Could people really be that fickle?

• Bolivia

  January 26, 2009 @ 2:59 pm | by Bryan

  Latin America has always fascinated me. The region has had a pretty traumatic history but on the whole, seems to be have managed to get back on its feet. Even more impressively is the fact that in many ways, South America has refused to blindly follow its northern neighbours and has often proposed alternative ways of doing things.

  For example, in the 1960s and 70s, the region produced an economic theory of development that was radically different to that proposed by mainstream economics. A group of Argentinean economists got the world to start seeing the global economic system in terms of a core (‘the West’) and the periphery (everybody else) linked in a structure that perpetuated the social imbalances that are still in existence today. A lot of the tenants of Structuralism and subsequently, Dependency theory, were later disproved. However, both have contributed a significantly to the social sciences.

  Today, apart from Cuba, countries like Venezuela and Bolivia make for interesting social experiments. It will be interesting to see what comes of Hugo Chavez’s attempts at building a ‘socialist’ society, especially now that oil prices have dropped and his popularity is waning, if only slightly.

  Even more interesting is what is happening in Bolivia. Evo Morales, the country’s first Amerindian leader, has managed to get a new constitution approved in a referendum. The constitution seeks to increase the rights of Bolivia’s indigenous people. It even refers to the various groups as ‘nations’. I find that particularly interesting because Ethiopia’s constitution is similar in that regard and has the same sort of emphasis on collective rights.

  I wonder how this turn of events will play out in a country that has seen a rise in tension between the indigenous majority and wealthy elite of mainly European or mixed descent. Bolivians obviously haven’t heard that we are now living in a post-race era!