No one....

Who Should Run the Global Economy?

by Michael S. Rozeff

The correct answer is simple: NO ONE.

It is not right morally that anyone should run the global economy. Morally, no one has that right. No groups of people have that right. No government has that right. No groups of governments have that right. No companies have that right. No banks, no central banks, no manufacturers, no corporations, no nonprofit organizations, no organizations or persons of any kind have that right.

Nor is it right pragmatically that anyone should run the global economy. All such attempts, without exception, must and do harm the welfare of mankind at large by privileging some at the expense of others and by preventing people from making those free choices (within the boundaries of non-coercive behavior) that they believe will enhance their well-being.

Governments from around the world should not, singly or banding together in groups, be running the global economy. There should not be an International Monetary Fund (IMF), a World Trade Organisation (WTO), a World Bank, and an Organisation for Economic Cooperation and development (OECD). They are counterproductive. They work against the welfare of mankind.

Governments and these kinds of government organizations do not actually "run the global economy" anyway. They ruin it. They prevent a free global market economy from emerging. They replace it with a ragtag collection of rules, regulations, invasions, interferences, taxes, subsidies, wealth transfers, privileges, currencies, trade barriers, controls, debts, crises, development policies, Keynesian policies, mechanisms, agreements, loans, mandates, and architectures. All of this total and complete mess needs to go the way of the dinosaurs. All of the rhetoric that accompanies this global fascism concerning its glories of global governance, public interest, and sustainable development needs also to be jettisoned before it makes everyone gag and suffocate.

Furthermore, there is no need for G3, G7, G20, G77 or any other G’s. These are nothing more than coalitions of governments whose participants want to shape the global economy to their own likings. These too work against the welfare of mankind.

There is likewise no need for regional coalitions and agreements constructed by governments like NAFTA and the Security and Prosperity Partnership. Look at the descriptions of the kinds of organizations that are promoting North American "integration". They are not aiming for integration on the level of personal choice. They want such things as "annexation of Canada to the U.S.", "binational health and environmental projects", "policy debates between governments", "central collection and coordination facility for a worldwide system of sensors...", "to enhance the competitive position of North American industries in the global marketplace...", and "A center for scholars regarding the trilateral issues in North America." Nearly everything they are after is at the level of entrenched interests, be they governmental, financial, military, industrial, educational, health, labor or environmental. Regional constructions are as oriented toward established elites and interests as worldwide constructions are, and both are arrayed against ordinary people, prospective entrepreneurs, free choices at the personal level and free markets.

Certainly there should be no central banks instituted by governments and no global organizations that connect them worldwide into a de facto world central bank or a proto-world central bank.

There should be no banks or corporations that obtain the backing, legal and/or financial, of governments so as to advantage them within the world economy. There should be no government-enforced privileges of anyone and any company arising from copyrights, patents, and other such monopolies that may come under the name of intellectual property. An important key to economic growth is free entry into business arrangements. Restrictions due to legal monopolies are seriously hampering progress. More and more wealth is being diverted into lawsuits over legally-created monopoly property that should never have been created in the first place. These barriers to entry need to be dismantled.

What should there be? Complete freedom of choice in the economic realm. Complete freedom to create capital. Complete freedom to devise currencies. Complete freedom to move capital anywhere in the world. Complete freedom of travel. Complete freedom for individuals to come to agreements with anyone else anywhere in the world.

Those people who are behind the technology, educational, skill and organizational curves (who isn’t?) and those people who wish to innovate (who isn’t?) should have every opportunity to do so in an unrestricted and unregulated way. People should be free to start businesses without restrictions. People should be free to devise rightful ways to protect their rightful property interests.

Who should run the global economy? This is not the kind of question that even crosses my mind because the answer is so completely obvious. No one should be running the global economy. From a moral standpoint, the idea is absurd! Running the global economy means using political power to decide or influence economic decisions. Such power is neither by the permission nor by the agreement of all of those subjected to it. If there is a moral case that supports the rule of some and the subjection of many, I’ve yet to hear it.

For a few to run the global economy is equally absurd from a pragmatic point of view. The knowledge problem alone nullifies all attempts by all elitists or all professionals in any area, be it banking, central bankers, macroeconomics, health, education, or defense, to run an economy or a sub-economy both within their countries and globally without running it into the ground. The best that they can do is to free up an economy, in which case it prospers, and even freeing it up in any proper fashion has usually proven beyond their capabilities.

The reason that you are reading this article is because I ran across an article written by Deborah James with the same title.

Ms. James is director of International Programs at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) in Washington, DC. Because of this, we do not expect to hear her articulating libertarian positions. In her article, she contrasts the existing "finance-led globalisation" with "development-led globalisation". This is some choice. We can choose a right-wing variety or a left-wing variety of fascism. The right-wing variety, as she sees it, is the existing order "dominated by the same rich country governments whose failed policies and unrestrained private sectors led the world into the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression." The left-wing variety is that of UNCTAD, which is the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, or a coalition of many groups that wishes to influence UNCTAD "to determine the contours of a global trade framework that is truly development-oriented, and thus to identify the changes to the existing WTO and ongoing negotiations that are necessary to ensure that governments have the policy space to use trade for sustainable and inclusive development, and to regulate in the public interest."

Basically there is a rivalry between Washington and the Group of 77 (now actually 131 countries) and China over control of UNCTAD. (See also here.) Washington is the world order of the states of developed countries represented by its control over the IMF, the World Bank, the OECD and the dollar, while China and G77 represent the order of the states of developing countries. The latter, among other things, basically want their governments to take out debts from the banks and governments of the developed countries; and then when they can’t repay these loans, because the developments for which they use the money do not generate enough revenues, to renegotiate them on favorable terms.

One important effect of this and other such politically-induced rivalries is to divide peoples and prevent them from associating freely. Governments create barriers between peoples. Governments create trade frictions. They create currency problems. They then struggle against these problems of their own creation, enlarging themselves in the process.

As far as the world’s peoples are concerned, that is, the vast numbers of us who do not have a seat at the poker tables where these governments meet and determine (ruin) the global economy, neither side has a winning hand for us. The better outcome is to overturn the tables, drive these control-mongers from their fancy temples and banquets, and allow people spontaneously to generate a free-market global economy.

As mentioned earlier, this involves dismantling the existing fascism throughout the world. That fascism privileges particular groups, be they corporations or banks or university-educated elites. This is the new world order. The new world order is already in place. It has been here for some time. Its in-house rivalries should not divert us. Supporters of freedom should not be choosing sides between rival types of fascism.

The "Spring" that lies before us is when the world’s peoples have had enough and decide to take apart the new world order. The new world order is here and now. It is fascism. It grew up in the 1930s. World War 2 transformed the fascism of Japan and Germany into a newer breed of trilateral fascism consisting of the United States (and its satellites) plus Japan and Europe. Most other nations of the world, developed and developing, have adopted the fascist model, which shows up in government control over economies and thus people. Fascism has sprouted. Its negatives are choking out beneficial growth. It is time to uproot this poisonous weed and let the flowers of freedom bloom.

Link:
http://lewrockwell.com/rozeff/rozeff384.html