I was away at the time and wanted to give Patrick's post, below, due consideration. I would point out under this thread title that the Economist has just carried a detailed article on this theme. One of the additional points is the intensified in-fighting between some officials of the World Bank and some of the IMF. This is only to be expected, since the perception that World Bank and IMF functions have moved together, means that any reform options may involve a forced merger and restructuring in which jobs and the power of individuals would be at stake. At 09:26 17/09/99 +0200, Patrick Bond wrote: >Chris, yes, to get back nation-state sovereignty over capital flows, >the IMF/WB must be radically disempowered (I would say >abolished, yes). Well, this was exactly what I wanted to challenge you about. To go for abolition of the IMF may have some small impact over time, but is much more likely to feed in to the resultant of forces by contributing to one reform option rather than another. It is not impossible so long as you stay in communication with other progressive people who have a different strategy, but why not work explicitly with others on what is the best target for progressive reform? >I see three types of arguments coming through in >the key int'l social movement debates on this matter: I agree we need some sort of over-arching conceptual approach to this process. No one trend or group is going to have all the "right" answers. This is a complex process both on the theoretical and the political front. >a) an international reformism aimed at merely improving (around the >edges) the embryonic world-state institutions, as was done with >the WB over the past decade or so, namely making them more >green, more gender-friendly, more transparent, and more oriented >to participatory processes (critics say this plus Stiglitzism and >what euphamistically is termed "debt relief" makes the WB a more >effective Trojan Horse for just-as-nasty and in many cases nastier >policies); I think your terminology really begs the question. The use of 'reformist' as an adjective focusses the question on the secret and sometimes unconscious motives of the participants. History will judge in retrospect who were the revolutionaries and who were the reformists (pace Louis Proyect and Carrol Cox). Meanwhile unless one believes as a matter of principle that marxism must be separate from practice, it is necessary to discuss reforms. We need - and I have just checked the dictionary - a *reformatory* strategy. It is quite true that the reformatory strategies under consideration are in themselves inadequate, partial and limited. Like all reforms they have a dialectical dual aspect - they may help the onward process of change, or they may restabilise the basic structures. According to the Economist, consensus is moving to the view that countries should at least discourage short term capital inflows. (That is a tiny gain against the total dominance of short-termism - total political subordination to the latest whims of the most mobile section of global finance capital.) It is true the "breaking of the chains of debt" campaign is in one sense reformist. It does not address the process of the uneven accumulation of capital which perpetually enforces these debts, but patronisingly seeks to annul them every so often. Indeed the petition had some unhappy phrase about putting the past behind us as if charitable blindness could solve the problems of capitalism. My petty bourgeois squeamishness about political purity made me hesitate to sign, and in fact I never did. However, that campaign opened the political space for a more determined group of campaigners who laid siege to the City of London itself on June 18. Their symbolic act, and it was symbolic too, made an even sharper criticism of capitalism, and will place constraints on the freedom with which capital can operate, and materially is protected by the police force. > >b) a "progressive internationalism" (as it was termed on PEN-L a >few years ago) aimed at establishing a world-state but not in any >way based upon the IMF and WB; indeed, acknowledge these folk, >shutting down the IMF/WB is a prerequisite for the power shift >needed to establish global democracy (the philosopher Iris Marion >Young, in her forthcoming book, and other cosmopolitan- >democracy theorists are putting their hope in the UN); and Well I missed that debate, and I appreciate you linking this thread up to it. I can see it is an arguably effective political stance to rally opinion around an abolition of the IMF and the World Bank and calling for a people's global network. Indeed I think I have come across this on the internet, recently calling for human rights in East Timor. But *in reality* no political position can work in isolation from the other forces, and as Chomsky's call over East Timor illustrated, to get the Indonesian military to acquiesce in the arrival of a peace-keeping force required behind the scenes brutal threats by the self same IMF and World Bank against the battered Indonesian economy. So politically it may sometimes be best to try to rally people round a position that seems at least relatively pure, but in reality, in linking theory and practice we have to consider the resultant of forces. That would be my pragmatic "progressive internationalism". And I would say it is more important to build up a sense of change and of a momentum of at least partial victories than to try to preserve a political stance that is notionally pure. E.g recently over East Timor it was progress that the US felt constrained enough to have to get the consent of the UN security council. >c) a "progressive nationalism" (again, a PEN-L phrase) which, in >advocating WB/IMF defunding, takes heart and strength and >knowledge from the potential unity of the variety of particularistic >struggles against local forms of structural adjustment, malevolent >"development" projects and Bretton Woods interference in social >policies (e.g., the IMF deciding last month to micromanage >Zimbabwe's exchange control, import tariff and staple-good pricing >systems because Mugabe was a bit naughty and dirigiste after the >1997-98 crisis), and which hence motivates for a return to national >sovereignty over capital flows (and with it, less balance-of- >payments support from hot money or IMF loans, and for trade >finance purposes improvement of int'l export credit agencies). This >latter argument takes seriously John Maynard Keynes' proposition >that "Ideas, knowledge, science, hospitality, travel -- these are the >things which should of their nature be international. But let goods >be homespun whenever it is reasonably and conveniently possible >and, above all, let finance be primarily national" > >You can find me there in group c, with a growing number of the >better South groups interested in opening up space for their own >radical democratic and proto-socialist development work, and for >strengthening international civil society linkages to these ends. >Some strong voices from the South -- e.g. SA poet Dennis Brutus, >Haitian economist Camille Chalmers, Nicaraguan ex-dep.foreign >minister Alejandro Bendana, and Filippino political scientist >Walden Bello -- are more and more explicit in advocating that >Northern solidarity activists help defund the BWI boot now so >heavily placed upon the Southern neck. But there is also, here, a >recognition of the integrity of those in group b who can tell the >difference between a potentially democratic institution (the UN, if >enormous enormous energies are directed there) and the WB/IMF -- > and there is a growing gap between group b and the myopic inside- >the-beltway-NGO folk who for professional and funding reasons >remain the main coordinators of group a. > >This is part of the balance of forces argument that I was hoping >from your London experience, Chris, you'd invoke. I will have to >defer to Bob Naimann for inside-the-beltway critique. I hope at least >you're making your way to group b where some reasonable >discussion can be had about the UN (or an Eatwell-Taylor style >World Financial Authority). You might check out the World >Systems theorists (e.g. Chase-Dunn and Boswell) who posit how a >world state could actually be established. I think that's where the >most interesting debates are going; those seeking "reform" of the >IMF tend to be opportunistic and in trying to do good, they are >making life more miserable by giving Washington a more human >face. OK your position c:- It reinforces my view that we need to foster debate in which we respect or at least listen to the different places people are coming from. You are indicating that in the context of the South you are finding ways of working with progressive people to articulate an agenda that calls for total rejection of IMF neo-liberalism. You consciously have found a point of dialogue with progressive post Keynsians - whatever reservations you may have about whether they are ultimately revolutionary or not. Bravo! but 1) I think you are theoretically at fault in seeing the IMF and the World Bank *only* as an instrument of oppression by finance capital (or whatever formula you have). There is also an element of emerging state structure. There is an objective need for a world bank if not The World Bank, for the regulation of liquidity. Thus unlike you, and I understand the local South African case of course, I welcomed the moves to the demonetisation of gold, because it is one step to removing the mystery of global capitalism. Ultimately however there is a social need for regulation of the amount of money in all its forms which is in circulation. And when a disaster occurs or a massive economic contraction occurs, there is a need for a social decision about how to organise the financing of the necessary social enterprise. I would challenge you that if you do not make that explicit, it is done secretely by the hidden allegedly benign hand of the market. To take current examples, the US, the Europeans and the Japanese have all relaxed financial restrictions to keep their economies turning over and to protect them from global recession. (There is currently a minor crisis because the USA and Japan are out of step with each other). Now this equivalent of deficit financing should have been done openly! And Africa should have been able to bid for a slice of the action - it would hardly have been inflationary on a world scale. 2) In these lists which cannot but be dominated by people with the frames of reference of the USA, I insist on signing my posts from London. That is also not Johannesburg, and I appreciate your signalling the difference. While I cannot claim direct hands on involvement (!) I would point out that it was in London where the stance of international finance capital received its sharpest demonstrations at the time of the Frankfurt meeting earlier this year. That means whether anyone thinks I am a Revolutionary or a Reformist, it is silly in the UK scenario not to look at the openings given by Gordon Brown's courting of the agenda of world financial reform particularly now he is chairing the "interim" committee of the IMF. I am not a member of the British Labour Party. Although some on the list will continue to regard this nevertheless as evidence of guilt of wanting to tail behind the Third Way (even more covertly), I say to the contrary that by looking for openings it is possible in principle to ally with others for partial limited objectives, like debt relief, NOT in order to smooth everything over, with Gordon Brown promoted to a job in Geneva at 1/2 million dollars a year, but in order to foster that process of momentum. So I have to emphasise I am not within the "belt way", and I do not know what the belt way is, and part of me does not want to know, because I suspect it it American and I do not want that to be my frame of reference. I think argument can only deepen on these international lists if instead of debating propositions and policies as to whether they are abstractly correct or not, we discuss them in terms of how they can link with practice in the conditions from which the writer is subscribing. Only then can we piece together a consensus, and keep up with breaking news about what provides the best overall framework for the most active reformatory stategy for world finance on the world stage. I remain unrepentantly in favour of undermining the control of the US over the IMF and World Bank. Chris Burford London
