Download Global financial architecture

Global financial architecture
A perspective from the South
We risk entering a new era where the US, and maybe some other
developed countries as well, are tempted to promote extreme trade
protectionism, whilst retaining or expanding the unpopular non-trade
issues in the trade agenda because it is in the interest of their
corporations.
We might end up with a new type of “America first” agreements, in which
a Trump administration ensures that the US can curb imports whilst
championing its exports, thus reducing the trade benefits to its partners;
while at the same time strengthening the rules in non-trade issues like
intellectual property and liberalising financial services that favour US
corporations but are against the partners’ interests.
That would be the worst of both worlds, at least for developing countries.
- Martin Khor, Executive Director of the South Centre
Trump and ‘Trade’
• Cacophony? Same old, new networks of
representation in configuration.
• Big ‘take their’ Oil (EPA), Big Pharma, Silicon
Valley, Big Banks: National Security Hawks
• Republicans + Obama = TTIP/ TPP fast-track
• Bilateral trade agreements: «US-Czech, USKazakhstan, US-Taiwan»
• This has already been the policy in LatAm
– FTAA failed, so bilateral; missing Mercosur + Ecuador
US Empire
• Multilateral level
– Will exert overt influence and control of
international institutions: $ (i.e. UNESCO)
• Institutions targeted for economic hegemony:
– Financial: IMF, WB-ICSID, FATF, SWIFT, BIS
– Technological: WIPO, ITU, ICANN, IEC, ISO
• Lat Am experience: Argentina, Nicaragua
US Empire
• Unilateral level
– ‘National security clause’ unilateralism
• Infrastructure, procurement and trade measures as national
economic security
• Global surveillance
– Will threaten and use military force
• Instruments for unilateral economic hegemony:
– OFAC (even cyber), FINCEN, FATCA-IRS
– FED ($ swaps)
– Lat Am experience: Cuba, Venezuela, …
Counter-hegemony
• BRICS
– New global banks: NDB, ABII, Euroasian
– New instruments: swaps, BRICS reserve arrangements,
Chiang Mei, UnionPay, Pro100
– Alternative (UN, not ISO) standards
• South
– Bank of the South, Fund of the South, SUCRE
• 5 sovereignties; commons-based financing
– UNASUR investment center
– [.sur]
• Ecuador
– Make CB accountable to democracy
– Electronic currency
Counter-hegemony
• Solidarity economy
– Cooperatives, communes, collectives, associations,
unions, chambers, etc. all over the world.
– Create global networks, bypass hegemonic instruments
with open standards and innovation (role for blockchain)
– Example: accounting software and payment systems,
common courrier and transport
– Need massive distributed technological upgrading, with
economies of scale for political accumulation
– Subordinate finance to production and Buen Vivir
• Must take over Central Banks and the like
21st century socialism
• Lenin: Soviets + electricity
• We say: Solidarity + internet
• Metric: unidimensional monetary (and labor)
• We say: multidimensional (biophysical) rights
of Buen Vivir + life-time