[PEN-L:29527] More on Stiglitz from Marxmail

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

I think the comparison between Stiglitz and McNamara is an illuminating
one, but I have a slightly different take on it.

As part of its self-reproduction process, the capitalist system
continually trains all kinds of "technical experts" and gives them
careers managing it. Naturally, their training is based on a very
narrow, ideologically blinkered view of the world, and most of them
never free themselves from it. But once in a while, some odd kink in the
mental equipment allows a few of these managers to get a glimpse of
reality, however foreign it is to their ingrained habits of thinking,
and they begin to have some sense that the way they were taught is all
wrong.

Of course, this is very confusing to them, and it is not surprising
that, as their whole world-view begins to crumble around them, they find
it hard to jump to the truth in one bound. But I think the radical left
should congratulate them on their first steps, and suggest some possible
next steps.

It seems, from this description of the Stiglitz radio interview, that
his main complaint about the IMF at this point is that it is too
centralized in Washington and should have more input from "knowledgeable
people on the ground." Actually, of course, the main problem is that the
IMF works as an organ of the world-wide system, which is continually
trying (though it continually fails) to run the whole world from *its*
center. Until that system is replaced, it will go on trying to function
the same way, whether or not the IMF exists or not. If it were
abolished, as he recommends, something else would be put in its place.
And a "decentralized" alternative to the IMF would certainly fail (even
if the powers-that-be allowed it to be set up in the first place), since
a system that is trying to run the whole world cannot do without a
"centralized" control organ.

What the world needs is "knowledgeable people" at the center, the
periphery, and everywhere else. And these folks need the knowledge that
Marxism, among other things, provides. Perhaps it is somewhat
encouraging that a few people who used to think they were
"knowledgeable" are opening their minds a bit. How can we help them
crack their brains open a few more millimeters?

Jon Johanning // jjohanning@xxxxxxx

---

Steiglitz went to Havana to present
his criticisms of the IMF at a world
economics summit there. That's to
Steiglitz' credit, in my opinion.

McNamara would never have done
that. He only regrets that what the
U.S. tried to do didn't work and he
wishes they had tried tactics better
suited to achieve the same ends.


Walter Lippmann



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Louis Proyect
www.marxmail.org