Global financial crisis and a call for the return to mixed economy
Global financial crisis and a call for the return to mixed economyWritten by Dr. Mbita Chitala
Introduction
The causes of the current systemic crisis of capitalism and the way forward for countries such as ours are a matter of great debate and any meeting by citizens organized to discuss and seek solutions is always useful.
I was not surprised to notice that many of the participants at the Indaba were yearning for change in the way we have been conducting our economic policies.
In this recession where economic activity has slowed, there is a slowdown in our GDP growth rate, slowdown in investment, low capacity utilisation in our industries, and there are low real incomes of households and lower profits for companies, governments usually respond by adopting expansionary macro economic policies, such as increasing money supply (monetarists) increasing government spending (Keynesians), decreasing taxation (supply side economists) while laissez faire economists recommend that governments should not interfere with the so called market forces.
What should be apparent in our country is the fact that the current international financial crisis points to the collapse of laissez faire economics and discredits market fundamentalism. This collapse of the Chicago School of Milton Friedman further implies the fact that Zambia, as is the case in many African countries, must break free from these failed neo-liberal policies and their institutions that have promoted them and define its own path of growth and development.
Causes of the crisis
The US sub prime mortgage crisis and the bursting of other real estate bubbles around the world were symptoms that helped create the global financial crisis. The real cause was however imbedded in the vagaries of the international capitalist system. The so called globalization simply refers to a phenomenon where the world is controlled by the financial oligarchy or what my good Egyptian friend Professor Samir Amin described as the “financiarised” groups – the oligopolies who do not produce profit, but rather, they just swipe the monopolies rent through financial investments. My other Ugandan friend Professor Dani Wadada Nabuere, in agreeing with Amin correctly argued that the core of the crisis is over-extension of credit on a narrow base resulting in a phenomenon where money has become detached from the material base of a money commodity that can measure its value such as gold or silver.
What do these observations by these eminent African scholars mean in reality? To understand this, we must go back in history. After the Second World War, the expansion of the world economy was based on the United States Dollar which provided the link between money and the gold standard. This link collapsed in the 1970s under the reign of President Nixon and the US Dollar became the global currency, but without a backing to this currency from a money commodity like gold as was the case previously.
Since the collapse of the gold standard, there has been unmatched expansion of global credit – growth of paper money and monetary instruments such as derivatives, future options and hedge funds at a faster rate while the productive base grew at a slower rate. Consequently, the “financial bubble” which the world has been experiencing lately became the logic of this imbalance. Samir Amin estimated that “the gross amount of financial instruments in 2008 amounted to two thousand trillion dollars while the world Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was forty four thousand trillion. This phenomenon was what precipitated the crisis. The growth of “speculative capital” has over-run the growth of “productive capital”. In other words, there are currently large amounts of credit circulating without the backing of any production at all. This “loose money” has completely run wild and is in a wild search to be given value. In other words, the owners of this “fake” money, those holding United States Treasury Bills and bonds, want to preserve their wealth and prevent themselves from financial collapse.
Results of the global crisis
Capitalism or more appropriately, this aging capitalism cannot re-invent itself. It is doomed by its greed to wither away. Its logic has resulted in or engendered global stagnation of production with its side effects of recession in the north and economic depressions in the south. The shrinking wages, the increasing levels of unemployment, the worsening of poverty and disease of many nations of the South – all this is symptomatic of aging capitalism gone senile.
For the Northern countries, the only way their aging capitalism can stay afloat, is by these states nationalising many of their key banks and corporations which can no longer survive because of the shortage of liquid cash. The world is now witnessing a situation where these capitalist countries are being forced to move back in the direction of central planning and management of economies - a phenomenon they hated so much not long ago.
Furthermore, this systemic crisis of capitalism is leading to a rapacious struggle for the earths resources. The 15 per cent of the planets population who currently consume 85 per cent of world resources want to continue with their opulent life styles at the expense of the rest. That is why the United States under President Bush wanted to continue with its global military control of the world by establishing Coricom on the African continent to secure the exclusive access to Africa’s resources against impediments that India and China may wish to introduce. Similar clouds of war as occurred in pre 1914 and 1938 are building up and the world should be preparing for self destructive acolyptic wars.
Collapse of market fundamentals
It has now dawned even to our most zealous market fundamentalists that markets are not impersonal beings. They are man-made forces influenced by greed and selfishness. Markets do not have self-correcting mechanisms. To most honest people, this neo-liberal dogma has collapsed. The devastation caused by the current international financial crisis where tax payers have been forced to spend trillion of Dollars to clean the toxic mess left by this collapse is a clear attestation to the collapse of market fundamentalism. Now, the ghosts of John Maynard Keynes and Karl Marx are coming back to haunt the neo-liberals. Now, policies such as nationalisations of banks and financial institutions, rescue plans for companies, the need for state intervention and attacks against unbridled capitalism – are now the real thing in global practice. The economist magazine of 2nd February, 2009 eulogized Karl Marx and put him on their cover page with the question “what would Marx think?”
The lesson for our country is that we must strive to free ourselves from the shackles of neo-liberal capitalism and explore new paths of development. In all religions of the world, countries are moving away from this discredited neo-liberal paradigm. Gordon Brown correctly characterised it as the collapse of the Washington Consensus. Of course, this change will require the political will of our leaders who must be willing and able to explore alternative development policies and programs. Our own Guy Scott prescription (The Post of 14 April,2009) that we must continue with the failed paradigms of the Washington Consensus is obviously a misreading of our history and a road to continued disaster.
SAPs are discredited
The G20 group of nations who met recently in London realised that the priority of all nations must no longer be inflation but jobs and economic recovery. The IMF and the World Bank who forced our countries to adopt Structural Adjustment Policies (SAP) have now changed their views and they are now supporting fiscal stimulus – that is, expansionary fiscal policies, rescue plans and nationalisation. These policies have since 1980s been denied to Zambia and all developing countries as these policies could impede the interests of global capitalism.
We must challenge and reject all the failed SAP policies. This is the same conclusion arrived by the Prof. Joseph Stiglitz Commission appointed by the UN General Assembly. We must use both fiscal and monetary measures to mitigate the impact of this financial turmoil. We must restore capital controls and reverse liberalisation of the capital account which, since 1993 in Zambia, simply opened doors to speculative capital flows, tax evasion and capital flight and has contributed to lowering of Zambia’s domestic savings while increasing our dependence on foreign aid.
To be continued
Labels: MBITA CHITALA, NEOLIBERALISM
posted by MrK @ 4:14 AM
2 Comments:
Very nice article, thanks for posting it. Mr. Chitala's views and explanations are very right and I agree with most of them. Although I would add that the crisis could be good for one thing, eliminating small and weak businesses. As a Real Estate Agent I have seen a lot of small businesses go down recently, bad for them of course, but they never were a strong addition to the economy anyways, rather a drag for it. The outcome of this crisis will be an economy strengthened by the big and reliable businesses.
Take care, Elli
Mr. Chitala's views and explanations are very right and I agree with most of them.We have been in a strange neoliberal economic experiment for the last 18 years (28 in the US), thankfully that will soon be over.
The IMF forced the government to sell the mines, and the currency went from $113/K in 1991 to $5,600/K today.
The outcome of this crisis will be an economy strengthened by the big and reliable businesses. Well that is why there were laws against monopoly formation. :)
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