This blog continues the unedited excerpts that will appear in my new book (with Italian journalist Thomas Fazi) which is nearing completion. This material will be in Part 3 where we present what we are calling a ‘Progressive Manifesto’, which we hope to provide a coherent Left philosophy to guide policy design and policy choices for governments that are struggling to see a way beyond the neo-liberal macroeconomics. In this blog I examine how the international institutional framework has to be reformed to serve a progressive agenda where rich countries (and the elites within them) do not plunder then pillary poor countries. Central to this new framework is the abolition of the World Bank, the IMF and the OECD, all of which have become so sullied by neo-liberal Groupthink that they are not only dysfunctional in terms of their original charter but downright dangerous to the prosperity and freedoms of people. Former World Bank chief economist Joseph Stiglitz told journalist Greg Palast in an interview in 2001 that the IMF “has condemned people to death” (Source). I will propose a new international institution designed to protect vulnerable nations from damaging exchange rate fluctuations and to provide investment funds for education, health and public infrastructure. We will explore how new institutions protect themselves from developing the sort of dysfunctional Groupthink that has crippled the existing institutions. We will disabuse ourselves of notions that are popular among some progressive voices that a fixed exchange rate, international currency system is required. This will be a two part blog and will also have context for other blogs where I discuss reforms to the global financial system.Bill Mitchell – billy blog
Reforming the international institutional framework – Part 1
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia
"The Right knew they had to deal with the State one way or another."
ReplyDeleteHow does "the right" be seen as getting rid of the state?
The right by definition is authoritarian how can you be authoritarian and also be seen to be wanting to dispatch with the state????
Doesnt even make logical sense....
They want an authoritarian state where they can rule over the worker, they don't want a true democracy where people can have say in how their society is run. The few don't want a society where the majority can make the rules, which will often impede on the will of the One Percent.
DeleteMe and Bill Mitchell share the same world outlook. A great guy.
ReplyDeleteThe right by definition is authoritarian how can you be authoritarian and also be seen to be wanting to dispatch with the state????
ReplyDeleteThis is accomplished in two ways.
1. Libertarianism aka anarcho-capitalism, where property is determinative.
2. Neoliberalism, where an elite captures the apparatus state through asymmetrical status, power, and wealth, and governs in the interest of the elite under the guise of representative democracy that is really oligarchy.
Both are devious ways of disguising authoritarian rule by an elite as "freedom." This is the façade of liberalism.
Well then the problem is better described as libertarianism rather than "the right"...
ReplyDelete