>What worries me at the moment, however, is that the left wing calling
>for a kinder, gentler, larger IMF is shrinking fast while the right
>wing calling for abolition of the IMF and no support at all for
>emerging market economies in financial crises is gaining strength...
>
>
>Brad DeLong
It will not be disastrous because it is not necessary for everyone to agree for things to change. It is only necessary for people who want change to keep the pressure up and to keep in some form of communication. The result, as always, will be the resultant of forces.
In the present situation it is hard to see the representatives of international finance capital in the end voting for the abolition of all international organisations to leave the global capitalist market in the blind hands of chaos theory.
But as Brad suggests, there is a serious lack of a strategic perspective.
I put the blame on the left opportunist distortion of marxism which eschews all talk of reform, and, like Stalin in the thirties, concentrates its fire on progressive middle elements. The fact that many of these left opportunist self-proclaimed champions of marxism come from a Trotskyist background, does not prevent them from following Stalin's practice in this respect.
Max is correct in his positive appraisal of Stiglitz. An honest empirical and theoretical approach and an engagement with practice, go a long way. What more can we ask of human beings? They cannot all have been lucky enough to find themselves in the one truly marxist revolutionary organisation existing in the world today. Or tuned in to the one truly marxist web-site.
Even if we do not greet Stiglitz as the new Messiah of the global economy, and can see some theoretical weaknesses in his position, we should be able to analyse what is positive in his stance and be prepared to unite in practice with those who admire him
>Actually Stiglitz' present posture is not a radical
>departure from his work, IMO, which has always used
>neo-classical methods to demonstrate basic problems
>in the nostrums founded on a narrow application of
>neo-classical theory. The main difference I would
>say is his transition from theoretical to applied,
>and from academia to the outside world, leading
>naturally to an explicit political role.
>
>If all academics had his theoretical vision, the
>profession would look radically different from its
>present incarnation.
>
>mbs
Chris Burford
London