Professor Zhang Yuyan, Member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Senior Fellow of the Institute of World Economics and Politics, said in a W.E. Talk exclusive interview with China News Service, that Kindleberger’s research in essence is about the old “Collective Action Problem” in economics. To avoid the “Kindleberger Trap”, the international community not only needs to solve the “Collective Action Problem” by institutional reforms and innovations for a just and reasonable international order through joint efforts but also needs to dispel misgivings, strengthen cooperation, and share the responsibility for global governance to build a human community with a shared future.
Important. Should-read.
ECNS (Chinese official English news service)Zhang Yuyan: How does China find its new path as a major country under the threat of the "Kindleberger Trap"?
5 comments:
The international "order" boils down to competition, with each country fighting for a piece of a finite pie. China is not a charitable organization. As such, they would be well advised to staff their academic institutes with realists.
Let us sing Kumbaya as we burn fossil fuels, mine the planet for metals, and push ever more species into extinction.
@Peter Pan
Yes,, that is the problem of falling into the Kindleberger trap.
According to Joseph Nye, a reason the world is in the position it is in now is that the US avoided addressing the Kindleberger trap when it became the hegemon.
When the hegemon becomes a free rider the system gets placed under severe stress. That stress is now becoming potentially existential.
The world is in the position it is in now because humans are driven by instinct. Everyone is a free rider, and everyone is capable of taking care of themselves when they have to.
US soft power has been more damaging to the world than US isolationism would have been. The system would operate as designed if each nation refrained from meddling in each other's affairs.
The world is being destroyed by platitudes and ill-advised 'plans' circulating among intellectuals. If there's a silver lining to the end of the fossil fuel age, is that it will bring decentralization and isolation.
The world is in the position it is in now because humans are driven by instinct.
I don't see instinct being the problem here. The problem is not being able to transcend narrow self-interest even when it threatens the system in which one is embedded — until the threat becomes felt personally as existential or at least very serious. The world at large is not there yet in sufficient numbers to create a critical mass necessary for drastic change. Then it become an instinctual matter, that is, the urge to survive aka the survival instinct kicks in. The problem then is that when the survival instinct takes over so does "It's every man for himself (and forget the women and children) rather than "We're all in this together." But without concerted action in the form of cooperation in meeting the challenge, the emergent challenge lies beyond the ability to address it successfully.
BTW, the "every-man-for-himself" strategy can be viewed as a form of free riding.
The scaled up version is "every country for itself". First, there was colonialism and imperialism, which was as vulgar as it gets. Then there was "free" trade, which was bastardized into forced trade, arbitraged trade, and other free-for-alls. The idea of limiting trade to those circumstances where it is mutually beneficial to all parties, was seen as anathema. But free trade wasn't about cooperation. You strip away the platitudes, and globalization is an expression of every country for itself.
The system works so long as it's fueled with abundant energy. The tribes of old can survive as the nations of the world, and the importance of geography is obscured. Trade serves as a mediator, but by no means is it a replacement for national or regional self-sufficiency.
The end of fossil fuels signals the end of that arrangement. Geography and autarky will once again determine the tribe's chances of survival. The importance of trade and international agreements will fade away. The more technology we retain in our low energy future, the less isolated we will be. However, the Star Trek like outcome depicted by futurists is not in the cards.
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