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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.
Michael S. Rozeff
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