Global Regulator

[Chris Burford]

At 13:50 16/01/99 -0500, you wrote:
>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

I am not aware that Brown has specifically called for a slowing down of
capital flows, but under the coded language I would have thought there was
close to consensus among all countries that more regulation of currency
turbulence would be a Good Thing. Anything that is produced in the next 3
months will be pretty limited, but the direction of change is perhaps more
important at this moment than the amount of change.

Marxists would presumably argue that the crisis has been solved, or can
only be solved, at the price of the relative destruction of one part of
global capitalism, and a corresponding increase in unemployment.

The Democratic and Social Democratic leaders of the western
capitalist/imperialist nations may be successful in a policy of higher
employment than would otherwise be the case, but the corollary is that is
likely to be at the expense of the working class in other parts of the
world, as long as the capitalist system prevails. 

It will therefore be necessary to look beneath the fine print of the
statesmanlike statements.

Chris Burford

London.