Friday, October 10, 2014

Christine Lagarde's global policy agenda

In her newest global policy agenda the managing director of the IMF says that the world should grow more as growth is needed to create more jobs. That sounds nice.

She also says that 'decisive structural reforms' are needed 'to bolster confidence'. That also sounds nice, or to be more precise: that sounds nice to those who embrace and advocate the structural reform agenda of the IMF.

But is it nice or good or wise to increase economic growth and implement the structural reforms the IMF advocates?

I doubt.

It depends on what kind of growth and what kind of 'structural reforms' one favours. The kind of structural reforms the IMF advocates and demands (!) are meant to bolster confidence of business leaders, policymakers and others who belong to powerful elites.

Creating more jobs for 'normal', less powerful, or even completely powerless people, and jobs for the underpaid who deserve better payment and better better working conditions, would contribute to a world with more equal wealth and power that I and many others (including some staff members within the IMF) favour.

A 'growth' (or de-growth) and 'reform' agenda is needed that is responsive to the need for a more social and less unequal world, as well as to the need for measures and policies against climate change.

I am afraid we need a different "global policy agenda" than the one suggested by Christine Lagarde.

About Me

As a kid I liked numbers and the sound of strings. I considered studying engineering but chose social sciences because of my interest in people. I combine a theoretical interest with a practical, social approach which brought me to the sphere of policy research. I am interested in reducing the disparity between poor and rich, between the powerful and the less powerful.
In 1973 and 1982 I lived in Latin America. In the mid-1980s, I was able to create an international forum to discuss the functioning of the international monetary system and the debt crisis, the Forum on Debt and Development (FONDAD). I established it with the view that the debt crisis of the 1980s was a symptom of a malfunctioning, flawed global monetary and financial system.
I was one of the driving forces behind the creation of the European Network on Debt and Development that was established at the end of the 1980s to help put pressure on European policymakers.
In 1990, before the beginning of the Gulf War, I cofounded the Golfgroep, a discussion group about international politics comprising journalists, scientists, politicians and activists that meets regularly.
The website of FONDAD is www.fondad.org