CAFOD, the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development (in England and Wales), has published a report calling for a Global Intervention Fund to support third world countries under attack from currency speculators.
The proposal is a dual one: the fund would be financed by a global transfer tax (Tobin tax).
CAFOD's spokesperson, David Woodward, admitted that the Tobin tax idea had been around for a long time but claimed that the experience of the Asian financial crisis was new: this would justify a combined measure to stabilise currencies, with the aid of the Global Intervention Fund.
As a reform it is obviously going in the right direction. In order to get air time on business programmes, like the BBC this morning, it has to be pitched in a reformist manner, quietly and reasonably. So reference to the catastrophic effects of crises had to be censored out.
The militant campaigning force will have to come from the sort of people who invaded the City of London last month, but on the other hand if there are not proposals for reform, there is nothing to struggle for in a more revolutionary way.
On the merits of CAFOD's proposal we would need to compare how such a Global Intevention Fund would differ from the IMF, which no doubt US senators will automatically consider perfectly adequate. Could it really buck the logic of finance capital? It may just provide a cover for lenders to withdraw their investment safely.
Can anyone get the text of CAFOD's statement?
Chris Burford
London