The World At Risk
By Farooque Chowdhury
19 January, 2011
Countercurrents.org
The world is at risk. “The world is in no position to face major, new shocks. The financial crisis has reduced global economic resilience,” and is increasing geopolitical tension and social concerns. “[G]governments and societies are less able than ever to cope with global challenges.” (Global Risks 2011, January 2011, World Economic Forum)
The mainstream is now admitting the reality its heart and head – capital – has created. The report mentions 37 selected global risks perceived by members of the Forum’s Global Agenda Councils and supported by a survey of 580 leaders and decision-makers around the world. It has found the “21st century paradox: as the world grows together, it is also growing apart.” The benefits of globalization, it said, are “unevenly spread – a minority is seen to have harvested a disproportionate amount of the fruits.” The so-called globalization worship, a vogue among a section of enlightened minds only a few years back, is now finding neither a deity nor alms. A brilliant crude propaganda only reigns there in the temple of capitalist globalization. Those minds cannot dare to ignore sermon from the Forum.
Interconnected two risks, the report said, are especially significant: economic disparity and global governance failures. These two influence other global risks. Economic disparity within countries is growing. Politically, there are signs of resurgent nationalism and populism as well as social fragmentation.
“Resurgent nationalism”, in mainstreamspeak, is asserting self interest by a number of countries in sectors of economy, especially in the area of hydrocarbon while “populism” is immediate essential steps by a number of countries for widening bare minimum living space of the people especially the wretched. The world capital is in trouble with these two.
The report expressed concern with the increasing economic disparity within advanced capitalist countries and emerging economies. Real income growth of the top income quintiles of the populations in Finland, Sweden, the UK, Germany, Italy, and the USA was twice as large as that of the bottom quintiles between the mid-1980s to mid-2000s. Similar facts have been cited in a number of ILO reports.
Economic disparity, according to the Global Risks Survey, is one of the most important risks in the coming decade. It is “tightly interconnected with corruption, demographic challenges, fragile states, global imbalances and asset-price collapse” and is influenced by global governance failures. It influences chronic and infectious diseases, illicit trade, migration, food insecurity, terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. The report does not tell that the present global governance and its failure are the products of the present world order, in essence the dominating capital.
In the present world, the report said, economic risks include macroeconomic imbalances and currency volatility, fiscal crises and asset price collapse, tension between the increasing wealth and influence of emerging economies and high levels of debt in advanced capitalist countries. The “macroeconomic imbalances nexus” is within countries and between countries. Internal imbalances are produced by factors that include government policies and private sector behavior. Global governance and regulatory failures, corruption and economic disparity are interconnected. These “create and exacerbate systemic global risks”, said the report.
Failure in global governance is the output of dominating capital’s incapacity while regulatory failure is that capital’s dominating power to unchain itself. Economic disparity is its product of inherent incapacity while corruption is its part of business.
The report’s “illegal economy” nexus examines risks that include state fragility, illicit trade, organized crime and corruption. It said: “A networked world, governance failures and economic disparity” boost illegal activities. In 2009, the value of illicit trade around the globe was estimated at US $1.3 trillion. These risks create high costs for legitimate economic activities while weaken states, threaten development opportunities, undermining the rule of law and keep countries trapped in cycles of poverty and instability.
Capital weakens states to smoothen its journey to the palace of maximizing profit although it needs state. An irreconcilable contradiction it generates. It engages with “illegal economy”, the economy that competes with, and hurts its “real” economy. A limitation it lives within. Illegal economy is its one of the modes to overflow its bags with profit. It circumvents legality while it creates legality to secure its appropriation and loot. It fights crime to secure its property created through crime while it invests in organized crime. A world dominated by jokers and hypocrites.
Illicit trades, now 7-10% of the global economy, corruption and organized crime, the report said, are fuelled by economic disparity. Advanced and emerging economies are experiencing these. Incomes from these “reinforce the power of the privileged” and increase inequalities within and between countries. These increase the costs of doing legitimate business.
Citing unsustainable pressures on resources the report said: Economic disparities undermine long-term sustainability. Demand for water, food and energy is expected to rise by 30-50% in the next two decades. “Shortages could cause social and political instability, geopolitical conflict and irreparable environmental damage.”
But, capital will stick to its economy that gulps water, that devours soil, that breathes in energy, that speculates with food, and that produces hunger. That is the way for its ever-expansion, and it cannot live without expanding all the time. It will die if its expansion ceases.
The report mentioned “five risks to watch”: Cyber-security issues (cyber theft, all-out cyber warfare, etc.), demographic challenges creating fiscal pressures in advanced capitalist economies and severe risks to social stability in emerging economies, resource security causing extreme volatility and sustained increases in energy and commodity prices, retrenchment from globalization, and weapons of mass destruction and the possibility of nuclear proliferation.
While it owns WMD it asks others to turn Lord Buddha, to follow the ahimsa mantra. That is, me the lord you the subject. A section of its subjects that it created to fight a foe turn naughty and make it harassed.
The report said: The US National Intelligence Council and the EU’s Institute for Security Studies recently concluded that “current governance frameworks will be unable to keep pace with looming global challenges unless extensive reforms are implemented. Increasingly, emerging economies feel that unfairly they have insufficient influence in international institutions… Yet there is uncertainty over the ability and willingness of rising powers to shoulder a greater share of global responsibilities, as well as reluctance on the part of established powers to recognize the limits of their own power.” The conclusion reflects contradiction between competing capitals that carry all the seeds to turn hostile, and hostilities between capitals turn hot engagements at times.
Crises the present world order has generated are pushing the entire world into uncertain and unsafe future. Our posterity will step in a volatile and unsafe world if the present world order is not changed. The mainstream’s analysis cannot ignore the reality.
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