Guiding the global economy now is apparently in the
hands of the G20. In September, at their meeting in Pittsburgh (their
third in a year), the G20 leaders adopted what they called a "Framework
for Strong, Sustainable and Balanced Growth."
The framework is
cast as "a process for economic co-operation and coordination to help
ensure that post-crisis policies avoid a return to dangerous imbalances
that undermine long-term economic growth."
The other day I received a pre-publication copy of The
Battle of the Story of the Battle of Seattle, by David Solnit
and Rebecca Solnit. It's set to come out ten years after a historic
coalition of activists shut down the World Trade Organization summit in
Seattle, the spark that ignited a global anticorporate movement.
Is capitalism evil? Is it bound to pass from the scene? I thought
such questions were forever relegated to occasional seminars in a few
cloistered left academies. Now, compliments of Michael Moore and the
Great Recession, such questions are part of our national discourse.
Yet, as even many on the left would caution, shorting capitalism is a
dangerous strategy that has burned many over the last two centuries.
Economic growth is supposed to deliver
prosperity. Higher incomes should mean better choices, richer lives, an
improved quality of life for us all. That at least is the conventional
wisdom. But things haven't always turned out that way.
Growth
has delivered its benefits, at best, unequally. A fifth of the world's
population earns just 2 per cent of global income. Inequality is higher
in the OECD nations than it was 20 years ago. Far from improving the
lives of those who most needed it, growth let much of the world's
population down. Wealth trickled up to the lucky few.
The biggest roadblock standing in the way of many people's recognition of the importance of the commons came tumbling down when Indiana University professor Elinor Ostrom won the Nobel Prize for Economics.
The credit crunch is getting worse on Main Street, despite a Wall
Street bailout now in the trillions of dollars. The Federal Reserve's charts
show that "base money" is rapidly expanding—meaning coins, paper money,
and commercial banks' reserves with the central bank.
We've all seen the dismal reports of this recession in the papers. We all probably know someone who's personally felt its effects. Job losses in September
reached 263,000, the worst in 26 years, and the real economy shows few signs of a near recovery.
On September 17, in the midst of the publicity blitz for his
cinematic takedown of the capitalist order, Moore talked with Nation columnist Naomi Klein by phone about the film, the roots of
our economic crisis and the promise and peril of the present political
moment. To listen to a podcast of the full conversation, click here. Following
is an edited transcript of their conversation.- -The Nation
Editors
PITTSBURGH - The G-20 Summit that opens today is unlikely to
achieve much when it comes to restructuring the global economic
order. That's good news for workers, farmers, consumers and
citizens.
What's good about inaction on the part of the leaders of the
world's wealthiest nations? While there is no question that a
radical restructuring is needed, it must be the right
restructuring.
