It suggests to me that there is the potential material base in the people of East Asia, at least a 1 1/2 billion of them, coordinating pressure for a better managed world economy.
The article I posted today on the banana wars also has material about how the IMF has been run to benefit the USA. Britain looks increasingly exposed over a 5 year period if there is intensified economic friction between the USA and Europe, since if the euro falls in value, the pound will be grossly overvalued in relation to the euro.
I would suggest that the trend towards dialgue between Europe and Asia against US financial hegemony will grow and should be fostered. There is no cold war now to give cover to US hegemonism over the other countries of the world.
On an international list like this where some of the thinking is influenced by marxist ideas, we have to be prepared to think globally and recognise there is a different role for democrats and workers within countries to the agenda world wide. That should not need saying but it does need to be said, repeatedly.
In marxist theoretical terms, we should specifically support Henry Liu's suggestion of targeting finance capital. Much has changed since Lenin wrote, but his emphasis that imperialism is above all the domination of finance capital is relevant still today.
Among our assets are that we can use the resources of globalisation to communicate. It is a very big political gain that most of the countries of western Europe have united in a common currency. But as imperialists themselves, their demands may not be the most radical. Although East Asia has lost much of its capital, what really counts is human relationships and in the last 50 years these countries have accelerated from a colonial or semi-colonial past to having vigorous numbers of educated people more than capable of asserting themselves on a world scale. The defeat of the last bastion of racism, in apartheid South Africa, has set a new standard of human dignity and equality such that a world economic system of such arbitrariness is intolerable.
Politics:
We must increasingly watch what actual changes can come about and understand what are the progressive forces pushing them.
"Transparency" is a slogan with a useful vagueness and ambiguity. We must analyse its contradictory nature and see when it is being used to aid democratic control of the global economy, and when it is being used to make local economies submit.
I agree with Henry emphasising that it is not just hedge funds. He notes that with the banks as well, the volume of mobile finance capital is the order of 30 trillion dollars. I agree also with the analysis of the herd instinct as a sort of systemic conspiracy.
The fact that tension has already opened up between the dollar and the euro, suggests that the inherent instability of this system has got to be addressed soon from the point of view of the imperialists (or most of them) as well as for the more dependent countries.
Some sort of currency exchange taxation to damp the flows appears essential, and there needs to be more specific political ideas about how special drawing rights are created for the world economy.
In particular if the figures Will Hutton give in the article on bananas are correct, the IMF rescue packages really indemnify the imperialist lenders. Therefore creating more IMF funds for this purpose is thoroughly reformist and a waste of effort. Whereas a more rational reform of a progressive nature would be to create a massive counter-cyclical fund for work on the environment and infrastructure, accessed by bids according to progressive criteria. Currency crises should be dealt with by reforms that reduce volatility of the exchanges.
I agree with Henry's regrets at the lack of a marxist voice coming over strongly in such a dramatic world situation. This will take time and collective effort. But I think we have got to grasp the difficulty of having a dynamic concept of value on a global scale. Only if we can see shifts in the fundamental distribution of value around the world, beneath the surface phenomena of figures, and herd instinct, can we anayse and contribute clear-headedly to a struggle of great complexity requiring all sorts of highly contradictory alliances.
Nevertheless the task is there, and the motivation for the struggle, independent of the will of any one individual.
Chris Burford
London