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it is and it isn't.
it is to the extent that it is primarily an instrument of american economic policy.
it isn't to the extent that what strauss-kahn is advocating is the setting up of a transnational regulatory body that would be in the position that obviously nation-states are no longer in: able to regulate in an effective manner trans-national capital flows.
the uk is already arguing for such a body---the eu is currently unable to quite figure out how to co-ordinate actions on a transnational scale as it lacks the authority even as, in principle, it is an already existing institutional structure.
i think we are reaching the end of the era of nation-states, bit by bit---if such a transnational regulatory body gets set up, it's status will be curious, but the effect of it would be to transfer fundamental aspects of nation-state prerogatives regarding economic policy/regulation to the international level.
what this means is not yet obvious, but it's a logical direction to move in.
what is clear is that this is a Real Problem for conservatives more than for any other ideological sector, because if you undercut the status of the nation-state, what else to they have to talk about? i would argue nothing. and so you'll see a dissolving of the space from which contemporary conservatisms speak and an atomizing of its politics.
this is not the same thing as the republican party--for that, what i expect you'll see is something like you're already seeing in europe: an increasing drift center with the result of an increasing interchangablity of political positions---so conflict will become over tactics.
all that is required to start thinking about this is the recognition of an obvious fact or two---whatever is being proposed as a "rescue" (word of the day) or "bailout" (yesterday's bad meme) is a provisional and partial action---the solutions, if there are any, to the underlying problems this crisis has exposed are going to take a while to unfold--and if it turns out that capital flows are in fact too big and too fast and too deterritorialized for a nation-state to adequately manage on its own, then the transnational direction is the only logical way to go.
and if this doesn't come under the aegis of the imf/world bank system---which would make it more controllable for the united states---it'll come from somewhere else--which would be less so.
so if the writing's on the wall and you like the american empire and the way of life it's enabled, you had better hope that the imf is not irrelevant.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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