Many years ago, in a desperately poor village in Rajasthan, people decided to plant trees on the land adjoining their pond so that its catchment would be protected. But this land belonged to the revenue department and people were fined for trespass. The issue hit national headlines. The stink made the local administration uncomfortable. They then came up with a brilliant game plan—they allotted the land to a group of equally poor people. In this way the poor ended up fighting the poor. The local government got away with the deliberate murder of a water body.
I recall this episode as I watch recent developments on climate change. At the recent Durban climate change conference small island nations—from the Maldives to Granada —believed, rightly so, that the world has not delivered on its promise to cut emissions and is jeopardising their future. But they do not have the power to fight the powerful. So, this coalition of climate victims turned against its partner developing countries, targeting India, for instance, for inaction. These nations pushed for India to take legal commitments to reduce emissions, dismissing its concerns of equity as inconsequential.
Ecuador must be one of the most exciting places on Earth right now, in terms of working towards a new development paradigm. It shows how much can be achieved with political will, even in uncertain economic times.
Just 10 years ago, Ecuador was more or less a basket case, a quintessential “banana republic” (it happens to be the world’s largest exporter of bananas), characterised by political instability, inequality, a poorly-performing economy, and the ever-looming impact of the US on its domestic politics.
In 2000, in response to hyperinflation and balance of payments problems, the government dollarised the economy, replacing the sucre with the US currency as legal tender. This subdued inflation, but it did nothing to address the core economic problems, and further constrained the domestic policy space.
A major turning point came with the election of the economist Rafael Correa as president. After taking over in January 2007, his government ushered in a series of changes, based on a new constitution (the country’s 20th, approved in 2008) that was itself mandated by a popular referendum. A hallmark of the changes that have occurred since then is that major policies have first been put through the referendum process. This has given the government the political ability to take on major vested interests and powerful lobbies.
What should protesters protest for? They rightly oppose the many faults of the current economic system, but what is the alternative? What ground should occupiers occupy? What can politicians who reject corporatist politics-as-usual, and economists who reject wrong economic thinking do in response to justified protest? How can the economy be transformed to serve the 99%, instead of the 1%?
Capitalism can work if reformed, and history can teach us much. In the period 1940-80, the Keynesian, mixed-economic models of north-west Europe, North America and many developing regions delivered to the poor and weak, while not frightening the strong. The financial sector was fairly small, well-regulated and simple; it financed the real economy, as it is supposed to. Growth, employment and security were high, poverty was reduced and liberty preserved, partly because social democracy helped both to moderate capitalism and to oppose communism.
The World Economics Association has been founded in spring 2011 and has so far attracted more than 7000 members from around 120 countries. The Journals of the association are committed to a policy of inclusiveness, openness and transparency. You are encouraged to read and comment on submitted papers that interest you. Editors will also make public comments to make their final decision making process transparent and to allow readers and authors to react and interact.
Papers submitted to the World Economics Journal include:
Growth in China, it is said, is slowing. GDP growth has reportedly fallen from 9.7 per cent in the first quarter of 2011, to 9.5 per cent in the second quarter, 9.1 per cent in the third and 8.9 per cent in the fourth. Much is being made of these numbers, though the 9.2 per cent average over 2011 is still high and the government has itself attempted to slow the system to rein in inflation.
One can sense an element of schadenfreude here. For too long now China has been showing up the rest of the world with its high rates of growth. This is especially true of the United States, which imports much from China, depends on inflows of capital from that country to finance its deficits, and is always looking for the next country to challenge its global supremacy.
However, if China’s growth is indeed slowing, this is no cause for even the US government to celebrate. A poorly performing China can drag the US down as well. Not just because China, with its large geographical size and population, is the growth pole that prevents the multi-speed global economy from sinking into another crisis. But because China is too important a market for the large multinational corporations that symbolise US economic power.
The Obama administration has launched a “21st Century” trade negotiation with a number of pacific-rim nations referred to as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). While the full details of the proposed treaty are yet to be made public, early estimates show that the economic benefits of the agreement will be relatively small and the regulatory costs could be significantly high—especially for the emerging market and developing countries engaged in the negotiations.
The gains of the agreement may be a mere $20 billion, or just over one percent of GDP on average for the nations involved. To get those small gains nations will have to trade away the ability to use measures to prevent and mitigate financial crises, to develop a growth-based innovation system, to protect public health and the environment, and more.
For nearly a decade, Goldcorp’s Marlin gold and silver mine in the Guatemalan altiplano has been at the center of intense local conflict and international scrutiny. The conflict was ignited in 2005 when local Mayan communities overwhelmingly rejected mining in popular plebiscites called consultas. Chief among their concerns was the potential for water contamination in the agricultural areas.
Virtually every international human rights organization—from the ILO to the UN Special Rapporteur – has weighed in, urging Goldcorp and the Guatemalan government to suspend mine operations to ensure protection of the rights, health and livelihoods of the indigenous people. In mid-2010, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States (IACHR) went one step further and issued precautionary measures ordering the Guatemalan government to suspend operations at the Marlin mine.
The concept of competitiveness has attracted a lot of attention by scholars, policy makers and international economic institutions in recent decades. But it suffers from some misconception when applied to developing countries. In a forthcoming book, Competitiveness and Development: Myth and Realities(Anthem Press),I have explained that developed countries have been concerned with competitiveness at the high level of development by undertaking, inter alia, technological development and upgrading of their industrial and service activities. Yet, they have been imposing competitiveness at the low level of development on developing countries. They have been doing so, by advocating neo-liberal views, e.g. through Washington Consensus, and imposing across-the-board and universal trade liberalization on developing countries through International Financial Institutions (IFIs) and WTO, and regional and bilateral trade agreements.
Greenhouse gas emissions are a global problem. Regardless of who emits them, these gases impact everyone, everywhere around the world: raising average temperatures and sea levels, and changing historical weather patterns. But climate change will not affect everyone equally. The two dozen island nations of the Caribbean are a case in point. With 40 million people living on islands in a small geographic area, it would be easy – but incorrect – to expect that they will all face the same climate damages. In fact, according to new research from the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), Caribbean residents are not all “in the same boat” and should expect to face a very wide diversity of climate impacts.
Yes, each person living in the Caribbean will experience about the same change in climate – temperature increase and shift in weather patterns – and degree of sea-level rise as her neighbors over the next decades. And her children and grandchildren can expect about the same changes to weather and sea levels as their neighbors. But these changes in the physical world will not impact all Caribbean residents in the same way.