Global Regulator

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Sat Jan 16 10:50:05 PST 1999


Chris Burford wrote:


>The BBC reports that today in Frankfurt Gordon Brown will be emphasising
>the continued instability in the world's financial markets as shown by
>Brazil, and calling for action within 3 months.
>
>One of his proposals is for a global regulator.
>
>
>Clearly he will not put forward anything that would be hostile to
>capitalism as a whole, and it might be beneficial in terms of lowering
>foreign exchange costs, but a) will it work, b) will it happen and c) in
>what ways might it be beneficial for the proletariat of the world?

I don't think that anything that comes from Gordon Brown will be very good for the proletariat in itself. But anything that slow down capital flows could provide a bit of breathing space. In designing Bretton Woods, Keynes and White were adamant that free capital flows would be the death of national full-employment policies. Slowing down capital flows would hardly guarantee the Lazarus-like revival of full-employment policies, and full-employment policies in themselves are hardly revolutionary, but it'd be better than a poke in the eye, for sure.

Doug



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