Who Should Run the Global Economy?
by
Michael S. Rozeff
Recently
by Michael S. Rozeff: The
United States’ War on Terror Threatens America
The correct
answer is simple: NO ONE.
It is not right
morally that anyone should run the global economy. Morally, no one
has that right. No groups of people have that right. No government
has that right. No groups of governments have that right. No companies
have that right. No banks, no central banks, no manufacturers, no
corporations, no nonprofit organizations, no organizations or persons
of any kind have that right.
Nor is it right
pragmatically that anyone should run the global economy. All such
attempts, without exception, must and do harm the welfare of mankind
at large by privileging some at the expense of others and by preventing
people from making those free choices (within the boundaries of
non-coercive behavior) that they believe will enhance their well-being.
Governments
from around the world should not, singly or banding together in
groups, be running the global economy. There should not be an International
Monetary Fund (IMF), a World Trade Organisation (WTO), a World Bank,
and an Organisation for Economic Cooperation and development (OECD).
They are counterproductive. They work against the welfare of mankind.
Governments
and these kinds of government organizations do not actually “run
the global economy” anyway. They ruin it. They prevent
a free global market economy from emerging. They replace
it with a ragtag collection of rules, regulations, invasions, interferences,
taxes, subsidies, wealth transfers, privileges, currencies, trade
barriers, controls, debts, crises, development policies, Keynesian
policies, mechanisms, agreements, loans, mandates, and architectures.
All of this total and complete mess needs to go the way of the dinosaurs.
All of the rhetoric that accompanies this global fascism concerning
its glories of global governance, public interest, and sustainable
development needs also to be jettisoned before it makes everyone
gag and suffocate.
Furthermore,
there is no need for G3, G7, G20, G77 or any other G’s. These are
nothing more than coalitions of governments whose participants want
to shape the global economy to their own likings. These too work
against the welfare of mankind.
There is likewise
no need for regional coalitions and agreements constructed by governments
like NAFTA
and the Security and Prosperity Partnership. Look at the descriptions
of the kinds of organizations that are promoting North American
“integration”. They are not aiming for integration
on the level of personal choice. They want such things as
“annexation of Canada to the U.S.”, “binational health
and environmental projects”, “policy debates between governments”,
“central collection and coordination facility for a worldwide
system of sensors…”, “to enhance the competitive position
of North American industries in the global marketplace…”,
and “A center for scholars regarding the trilateral issues
in North America.” Nearly everything they are after is at the
level of entrenched interests, be they governmental, financial,
military, industrial, educational, health, labor or environmental.
Regional constructions are as oriented toward established elites
and interests as worldwide constructions are, and both are arrayed
against ordinary people, prospective entrepreneurs, free choices
at the personal level and free markets.
Certainly there
should be no central banks instituted by governments and no global
organizations that connect them worldwide into a de facto world
central bank or a proto-world central bank.
There should
be no banks or corporations that obtain the backing, legal and/or
financial, of governments so as to advantage them within the world
economy. There should be no government-enforced privileges of anyone
and any company arising from copyrights, patents, and other such
monopolies that may come under the name of intellectual property.
An important key to economic growth is free entry into business
arrangements. Restrictions due to legal monopolies are seriously
hampering progress. More and more wealth is being diverted into
lawsuits over legally-created monopoly property that should never
have been created in the first place. These barriers to entry need
to be dismantled.
What should
there be? Complete freedom of choice in the economic realm. Complete
freedom to create capital. Complete freedom to devise currencies.
Complete freedom to move capital anywhere in the world. Complete
freedom of travel. Complete freedom for individuals to come to agreements
with anyone else anywhere in the world.
Those people
who are behind the technology, educational, skill and organizational
curves (who isn’t?) and those people who wish to innovate (who isn’t?)
should have every opportunity to do so in an unrestricted and unregulated
way. People should be free to start businesses without restrictions.
People should be free to devise rightful ways to protect their rightful
property interests.
Who should
run the global economy? This is not the kind of question that even
crosses my mind because the answer is so completely obvious. No
one should be running the global economy. From a moral standpoint,
the idea is absurd! Running the global economy means using political
power to decide or influence economic decisions. Such power is neither
by the permission nor by the agreement of all of those subjected
to it. If there is a moral case that supports the rule of some and
the subjection of many, I’ve yet to hear it.
For a few to
run the global economy is equally absurd from a pragmatic point
of view. The knowledge
problem alone nullifies all attempts by all elitists or all
professionals in any area, be it banking, central bankers, macroeconomics,
health, education, or defense, to run an economy or a sub-economy
both within their countries and globally without running it into
the ground. The best that they can do is to free up an economy,
in which case it prospers, and even freeing it up in any proper
fashion has usually proven beyond their capabilities.
The reason
that you are reading this article is because I ran across an article
written by Deborah James with
the same title.
Ms. James is
director of International Programs at the Center for Economic and
Policy Research (CEPR) in Washington, DC. Because of this, we do
not expect to hear her articulating libertarian positions. In her
article, she contrasts the existing “finance-led globalisation”
with “development-led globalisation”. This is some choice.
We can choose a right-wing variety or a left-wing variety of fascism.
The right-wing variety, as she sees it, is the existing order “dominated
by the same rich country governments whose failed policies and unrestrained
private sectors led the world into the biggest economic crisis since
the Great Depression.” The left-wing variety is that of UNCTAD,
which is the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development,
or a coalition of many groups that wishes to influence UNCTAD “to
determine the contours of a global trade framework that is truly
development-oriented, and thus to identify the changes to the existing
WTO and ongoing negotiations that are necessary to ensure that governments
have the policy space to use trade for sustainable and inclusive
development, and to regulate in the public interest.”
Basically there
is a rivalry between Washington and the Group
of 77 (now actually 131 countries) and China over control
of UNCTAD. (See also here.)
Washington is the world order of the states of developed countries
represented by its control over the IMF, the World Bank, the OECD
and the dollar, while China and G77 represent the order of the states
of developing countries. The latter, among other things, basically
want their governments to take out debts from the banks and governments
of the developed countries; and then when they can’t repay these
loans, because the developments for which they use the money do
not generate enough revenues, to renegotiate them on favorable terms.
One important
effect of this and other such politically-induced rivalries is to
divide peoples and prevent them from associating freely. Governments
create barriers between peoples. Governments create trade frictions.
They create currency problems. They then struggle against these
problems of their own creation, enlarging themselves in the process.
As far as the
world’s peoples are concerned, that is, the vast numbers of us who
do not have a seat at the poker tables where these governments meet
and determine (ruin) the global economy, neither side has a winning
hand for us. The better outcome is to overturn the tables, drive
these control-mongers from their fancy temples and banquets, and
allow people spontaneously to generate a free-market global economy.
As
mentioned earlier, this involves dismantling the existing fascism
throughout the world. That fascism privileges particular groups,
be they corporations or banks or university-educated elites. This
is the new world order. The new world order is already
in place. It has been here for some time. Its in-house rivalries
should not divert us. Supporters of freedom should not be choosing
sides between rival types of fascism.
The “Spring”
that lies before us is when the world’s peoples have had enough
and decide to take apart the new world order. The new world order
is here and now. It is fascism. It grew up in the 1930s. World War
2 transformed the fascism of Japan and Germany into a newer breed
of trilateral fascism consisting of the United States (and its satellites)
plus Japan and Europe. Most other nations of the world, developed
and developing, have adopted the fascist model, which shows up in
government control over economies and thus people. Fascism has sprouted.
Its negatives are choking out beneficial growth. It is time to uproot
this poisonous weed and let the flowers of freedom bloom.
April
25, 2012
Michael
S. Rozeff [send him mail]
is a retired Professor of Finance living in East Amherst, New York.
He is the author of the free e-book Essays
on American Empire: Liberty vs. Domination and the free e-book
The U.S. Constitution
and Money: Corruption and Decline.
Copyright
© 2012 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in
part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.