In Search of a New World Order
In search of A New world order Tower of Babe
The period called "The golden years" was between 1950 and 1973. It was a rapid growth in the economy of the United States of America for more than two decades. The same happened with the economies of Europe and Japan, which also enjoyed very high growth rates.
The advanced countries of the world fostered a commodity boom that would benefit countries rich in natural resources, such as those rich in oil in the Middle East, as well as the industrialized nations of East Asia, namely Singapore, Thailand, China, etc.
The famous Bretton Woods conference, where rules were established for commercial and financial relations between the most industrialized countries of the world, was held in New Hampshire, in July 1944, attended by representatives of 44 countries with the objective and result of designing a monetary and financial system for the post-World War II era. "Bretton Woods", with the "Marshall Plan", became a metaphor of great international success, in this case the result of a conference. Since then many suggestions have been made for a "new Bretton Woods", one of them in the year 2011 by, at that time, President Nikolas Sarkozy of France, to restore or at least improve the international monetary system. "Europe wants it. Europe demands it. Europe will get it”. It was part of his statement.
I cannot even imagine the difficulties it would take to restore a well-functioning monetary system based on rules. I mean it has to be easy to say what is wrong, but to reach an agreement of sensible reforms, it must be difficult.
The financial crisis of 2008 generated pleas, let alone suggestions, to create a global financial system to reduce trade imbalances, moderate speculative capital flows and avoid systemic risk (domino effect). That, of course, was the goal of the original Bretton Woods system. But such a system today would be unsustainable and undesirable. So, what would an alternative be like?
The currency exchange is really necessary. In the first place, it contributes to the development of international trade, improves international labor standards and the effective use of the possessed savings, and at the same time it provides benefits to the entire world community.
So what are we going to do to make this work better? This is the only question worth asking. But the answers seem elusive. We are facing a multifaceted crisis; the takeover of governments by billionaires and their groups of lobbying, extreme inequality, the emergence of demagogues, leaders with little vision, those in whom we seek leadership appear dazed, without voice, without idea. Even if they had the courage to act, they have no idea what to do. The only thing they offer is more economic growth: like this would mean making the economy misfortunes disappear. It does not matter that the ecological destruction increases; that it has not managed to alleviate structural unemployment or the growing inequality gap; that, for many years, almost all the increase in income has been reaped by the top 1%. As values, principles and moral purposes are lost, the promise of economic growth is all that remains.
We cannot wait to address our situation without a new vision of the world. We cannot use the same economic models that caused our crises. We definitely need to rethink the problem.
Let's go to fundamentals, according to my knowledge, the economic growth, only measures the annual flow, not the stock of wealth nor its distribution.
The economy is a universal science, it is not a normative or moralistic science where it judges what is good and what is bad, its objective of study are the actions of human beings, therefore, it is something that is constantly changing . The economy studies the needs of: individual, home, business, government, country and the world. It is managing the house, say the Greeks.
The objective of the economic activity, should be, to satisfy the needs of all within the means of the planet. Instead of economies that need to grow, make us prosper or not, we need economies that make us prosper, whether they grow or not. This means changing our idea of what economy is and how it works.
Ah, the golden years! If it happened once, why not another? Only this time without having to dismember the planet.
As for our friend Nikolas, he should have devoted himself to the legal profession only.