Revista Mensual y Gratuita
Nº83, julio 2010
Geopolitics
Fabulous animals and real economies
Nobody knows if capitalism, like a cat, has nine lives or not. We do know that global disequilibria have become unsustainable and that globalization as we know it is about to end. Fables and legends teach us something about the process.
The Twilight of Europe?
Every national solvency crisis rapidly becomes a currency crisis. Under late capitalism, all big crises are interrelated. The central economies all face significant emergencies but each in its own manner and with a different rhythm. In order to avoid a new Great Depression, governments have socialized and monetarized debt. Thus, the second phase of the crisis is a sovereign phase. Today the euro is losing value relative to the dollar, but the latter will also fall sooner or later. Think of the Titanic, with the euro as the bow and the dollar as the stern. The dollar goes up as the euro goes down, but they are two parts of the same sinking ship. In the lifeboats, the great Asian societies standby and seek to rescue what they can. The United States may overcome the emergency thanks to its relative youth, flexible society, and inventive dynamism. Europe, on the other hand, has long gotten used to the comforts of retirement.
Greece, Argentina, and the World
There are two countries that are dear to me, but that also break my heart. I love Argentina because in it I learned to live. I love Greece because in it I earned to sail (like Christopher Columbus, in the isle of Chios). It hurts me to see Argentina limp along below its potential. It pains me to see Greece full of people who, as in Argentina, practice “native cunning.” Both countries have become underdeveloped through their own efforts. That must change. Besides, the current Greek economic crisis threatens the union of all Europeans. That would be fatal for Western civilization. It would be ironic if the cradle of that civilization became also its gravesite.
If I Were King of the World
Many solutions, including some audacious ones, promise a way out of the crisis. In order to analyze them, it is helpful suspend our usual caution and imagine a limitless and benevolent power (albeit a fictional one) that guides us to a better world. To understand the real, we must appeal to the unreal. To find safe harbor, we must use a utopian vision as our guiding star.
The Price of Native Cunning
The evolution of the world economic crisis makes one aware that “native cunning” (in Spanish ‘viveza criolla’) is not just a local peculiarity of Buenos Aires, or even of Argentina as a whole, but something more general. Self-seeking cunning has been the norm in international finance, and it has been also the way in which a number of governments have hidden their real fiscal situation. These clever games end up badly, that is in bankruptcy. And yet, even when bankruptcy arrives, the brokers who abetted the scams make more money betting on the likelihood of collapse.
Rational Exit
The long or the short view? In the haste to avoid a second Great Depression, many governments around the world took emergency measures that did not really address the deep causes of the crisis. They are short-term measures that leave intact the institutions and practices that led to the crisis in the first place. Those institutions and the pressure groups around them try to block the reforms or dilute them. Politicians funded by them and who see in those actions some opportunistic dividends join them in this task.
The First Decade of the Century: A Balance Sheet
The geopolitical balance of the first decade of the 21st century reveals several major shifts. On the security front, global war has faded into the past. It has been replaced by nuclear proliferation, a greater risk of regional wars, and one major new challenge: international terrorism. In terms of global power, there is a definite geographical shift from West to East. On the economic front, capitalism has encountered its own limits at the very center of the global system. Major crises have moved from the periphery to the center, that is, chickens have come home to roost. The global South, on the other hand, has shown signs of development and growth, aided and abetted by the multi-polarization of power. Latin America, in particular, can no longer be considered as a unitary zone. Diversity is increasing, in part fuelled by the ebb of American clout and influence.
Chimericas
The relationship between China and the United States (Chimerica) has become problematic. At the same time, the relationships between China and some major Latin American countries has become promising. Brazilian development exemplifies that promise, while Mexico exemplifies the difficulties of an older model of dependency.
The Day After: Reflections on the Evolution of the Crisis
What have the principal countries gained with the various rescue measures they have adopted in face of the financial crisis? They have gained time. But gaining time is not a strategy. At best it is a tactic that may be used to engage real reforms; at worst it merely postpones the day of reckoning. We have gained a measure of time to set in place regulatory structures, to mitigate global inequality, to reorganize societies around a more austere lifestyle, to energize the bottom of the social pyramid, and to establish the bases for new patterns of sustainable development.
By Reason or by Force The International Crisis and the Return of Public Intervention
In the uncanny calm that has followed the crisis a new “systemic” rationality is making headway. Neither individuals nor single states are capable by themselves of engaging it. Only international consensus and coordinated action can engage it. This is a novelty that will usher into a different geopolitical order in the years to come.
What's new
Ways to Donate
10/12/2009
Adjusting the course: Getting out of the crisis towards sustainable development
Opinion Sur Collection
21/10/2009
New E-books
Introducing three new additions to our collection
23/09/2009
Getting out of the Crisis towards a sustainable development
STORM: The ways of the crisis and the ways out of it
International Crisis: Adjusting the Course and Improving the Systemic Functioning
Opinión Sur Presentation
9/09/2009
Working Session: Microcredit in the XXI Century
Catalyzing Interventions to Enhance the Impact of Microcredit Programs
17/09/2008
