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the basic problem that, as it turns out, it not yet being addressed is whether nation-states are in a position to maintain stability in the context of transnational capital flows, particularly given the speed with which they move (the net) and the opacity of the most explosive types of financial devices....
the split within the g20 at the last meeting happened over this question, with the germans acting like us republicans in assuming that it is possible for nation-states to remain the central while the us proposed a reworking of the imf that'd enable it to operate at a meta-national level to effect the spaces of flows directly.
the thread has gone in two directions: the first was about the assessment of the overall economic situation issued by the imf itself, which was kinda interesting both in itself and also because it came as the proposal to change the composition of the governing council and the role of the institution---so you can look at the report as an indication of the scenario that the imf drew that'd define the situation into which it was going to enter. the second part of the thread was about geithner's proposal to revamp the imf itself and what happened to it at the g20 meeting last weekend in london.
personally, i think the past few months are demonstrating that capital and it's movements have outstripped the control of individual nation-states, but also that political and economic stability requires that they be controlled. there have been a series of explosions in the southern hemisphere driven by this situation which are directly political--guadeloupe, madagascar have both experienced general strikes--there have been quite massive protest movements in france---iceland has already experienced the consequences of a collapse of the financial sector. it's a little surprising to me that there has been so little in the way of oppositional activity in the united states, but i attribute that to the centrality of the ideology of spectatorship coupled with the timing of the transition of power to the obama administration.
the problem is that if it turns out that the political classes realize that there have to be supra-national institutions (and by extension legal frameworks) to stabilize things, what'll be required is something on the order of a new bretton woods--but which goes beyond that---but this is a complicated project and the political class has apparently decided that it's too much to take on so they've chosen to run away from the problem for the time being. i think this will turn out to be a really stupid move and that the problem will resurface soon and that they'll be in a postion of having to be more reactive than they already would have been because they've pissed away more time.
geithner's imf proposal had the sole advantage of looking to institutions that already exist.
but i think that the internal culture of the imf will be a proble, and the adaptation to the role geithner suggests not easy, the outcomes not necessarily good--but it at least starts to address the problem.
strangely, i think the neocons tried to deal with something like this question by way of the war in iraq--their idea was to set up the united states as supra-national by way of military hegemony. this would have issued into an authoritarian global order, an explicit american empire---but the gambit didn't work--and it's a good thing it didnt because had this same crisis we're going through unfolded in that scenario, the political damage to the united states would have been total. the central motivation behind neocon politics, however, is anxiety about loss of centrality for the nation-state....the writing's on the wall you see.
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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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