Sometimes, when important persons take leave of their public life, they feel the need to make a bow to historical truth and seek to be remembered for more virtuous analysis than they normally had made earlier. This was the case when the last military man to be a president of the United States, Dwight Eisenhower, gave his farewell address in 1961. In that speech, he warned against the dangers that a "military-industrial complex" was coming to control the decisions of the U.S. government. This has been a theme ever since of the U.S. left but it has not been a theme frequently repeated by subsequent Republican politicians.
The story may turn out to be similar with the "farewell speech" of Michel Camdessus, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).On Feb. 13, 2000, the day before he was to leave office after 13 years (the longest term of any Managing Director), Camdessus addressed the Tenth United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in Bangkok. He said some very radical things.
He started by noting what he called the paradox of the present world economic situation: "promise - unprecedented prospects in certain fields - but financial instability and 'exclusion,' the so cruel situation of the poorest and the anxieties of so many in the world." He said we must recognize that "there are serious reasons for this anxiety." He called on everyone to "recognize that poverty is the 'ultimate threat' to stability in a globalizing world."
After all the speeches we have had from the IMF and its ideological consorts about the primacy of growth as an economic objective, Camdessus now tells us: "It is recognized that the market can have major failures, that growth alone is not enough, or can even be destructive of the natural environment or precious social goods and cultural values. Only the pursuit of high-quality growth is worth the effort."
Camdessus italicized "high-quality." And he proceeded to define this term in language one usually hears from the critics of the IMF: "growth that can be sustained over time without causing...imbalance; growth that has the human person at its center...; growth...based on a continuous effort for more equity, poverty alleviation, and empowerment of poor people; and growth that promotes protection of the environment, and respect for national cultural values."
And from this point, Camdessus moves on to virtual populism: "Popular support for stabilization and reform cannot be counted upon, unless the whole population. including the poorest - and by the poorest I mean those that not only are out of the loop, but even more are unable to contribute their experience - is able to participate in the formulation of the policies and, of course, in the benefits from those policies." Camdessus attributes the anxiety that is widespread to the fact that globalization "has not yet demonstrated that it is concerned enough, or capable of overcoming the great concern of our times." And that concern, he says, is poverty.
As recently as the latest Davos conference, we were being assured that a rising tide raises all ships, and that globalization would prove of benefit to everyone. But no, says our secret radical, the Managing Director of the IMF, "the widening gaps between rich and poor within nations, and the gulf between the most affluent and most impoverished nations, are morally outrageous, economically wasteful, and potentially socially explosive." Widening gaps? There are those of us who have argued this for a long time, but only now have we had the assent of the IMF, at least the rhetorical assent. Perhaps the gaps have grown to be so wide and so obvious they can no longer be hidden from the blindest.
Furthermore, says Camdessus, "poverty is no longer inevitable, if it ever has been..."
What then should we do? Camdessus recommends a five-point program for the poor countries. Points two to four are standard gospel: sound macroeconomic policies, promotion of the free market, and a web of laws that support the functioning of markets. But see point number one: "country-driven strategies that make poverty alleviation the centerpiece of economic policy...." And point five: "well-targeted and cost-effective social safety nets, a shift in public spending towards basic social services in education and health care, and efforts to provide income-earning opportunities for the poor." Immanuel Wallerstein (http://fbc.binghamton.edu/commentr.htm)
