Re: NYTimes.com Article: Devotion to Free-Market Makes for Ineffectual Policy

["Geoff Edwards" <g.edwards@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks, James. Of course no criticism of the PK list was intended. PK list
is what it is and what the members have made of it.

My point is that eventually, it is the thinkers of the world who generate
solutions to problems. But thinkers tend to rely on leaders, advocates,
spokespeople: brokers who can cross into politics, the civil service and the
public arena to translate academic ideas into workable solutions. These
translators may well be academics themselves, but the skills required are
different. VOW is such a broker.

The time is close by for 'alternative economics' (for want of a better word,
and to bypass a recent debate on this list) to step into the mainstream and
drive a better way of managing national economies. But PK thought probably
needs some translation - re-packaging - in order for this to happen.

For the academically-minded, I suggest a read of Kingdon, John W. 1984.
"Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies". Boston: Little Brown. Kingdon
explains how ideas cross between the problem, policy and political streams
of activity.


Geoff Edwards
PhD Student
Griffith University
Brisbane, Australia


-----Original Message-----
From: Schulte-baeuminghaus [mailto:schulte.baeuminghaus@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, September 11, 2002 11:09 PM
To: g.edwards@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: VOW@xxxxxxxxxx; gang8@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: NYTimes.com Article: Devotion to Free-Market Makes for
Ineffectual Policy


I agree with what Geoff Edwards says below.
There is a lot of dissent with policies around the world - economic, social,
political, environmental...
This dissent is frequently expressed, sometimes violently, mostly
vehemently.
A great many people and a wide variety of "associations" take part.
In the media and on the internet, the dissent is no less clear and no less
widespread.
However, all of this dissent lacks focus.
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that there appear to be no
"leaders" and no process which is capable of bringing the dissent into focus
and then, of course, embarking on pragmatic ways of making the dissent
effective.

At the same time, we seem to be pretty clear that governments and
international agencies are holding closely together.
They have been focussed and they have stayed focussed, despite the dissent
and, in the last year, the impact of 9/11.
In many ways, that is astonishing and it is no less astonishing that
distinguished people - in academic life, in business and finance, in CEO
positions in the international agencies - have done nothing effective to
have the issues of the dissenters effectively discussed.

I heard a BBC program a couple of weeks ago, constituting a roundtable of
"celebrities" to discuss issues of poverty, development and the like.
They are people we can all respect. One of the participants was Mary Kaldor
who impressed with her sincerity, her intellect, her articulateness and, may
I say it, her "activism" at least at the intellectual level.
George Soros was another participant to whom it is impossible to feel other
than warmly for his efforts to use his resources for the benefit of so many.
Not as articulate as Kaldor, his sincerity was as marked and his "activism"
has clearly gone far beyond the intellectual.
The retiring Director-General of the WTO was more satisfied with his
organisation - what it had done and what it would prospectively do than he
might have been. His unhappiness was constrained and, in that, he seemed to
reflect the attitudes of those in charge in the United Nations, the IMF, the
World Bank and others. There was no focus on major reform, let alone
"revolution," but rather an implication that a bit of fine tuning would make
everything right.
I might add that an African and a Latin American were both eminently
likeable and impressive for their insights.
However, nothing seemed to emerge from this high-profile group.
We had no line or lines to pursue.
We had no new philosophy or pragmatic guidelines.
We had no process which we might get moving.

I think it is not too sceptical or cynical to say that Johannesburg left
many of us in the same disturbed condition but with nothing achieved or in
prospect that might modify our disturbance. Promises of a kind were there
but no real imperative appeared to change anything fundamental in our
economic, social, environmental or other policies.

We were there yesterday.
We are there today.
Disturbed but unfocussed; chaotic in our "activism," disordered in what we
should do.

Geoff Edwards says he is "not convinced that PK has adequately tapped into
the peace, green, justice and development communities." He suggests, "The
question is, is PK ready for a transforming shift?"
I imagine that he does not mean this in a way to be especially critical of
"PK."
If so, his criticism applies to many others.
Indeed, it could apply over the whole spectrum of individuals, associations,
movements and what have you.
Much of what is said in "PK" is admirable in professional and intellectual
terms but, so far at least, it offers no prospect of confronting and
resolving any of the great world issues of our time.

Can we do better?
I now come to the difficult part.
It's just too easy for each of us to imagine that we have found the way
ahead, the solution to our discontents and so on.
Pet theories can be the bane of rational thought and substantive progress.
But we do need a process for coming to grips with the issues that confront
us.
And for that reason I suggest that we must contemplate a movement of the
kind embodied in Victory Over Want.
It will bring us all together.
It will let all of us - a pretty high proportion of us anyway - have our
say.
It will establish an agenda and a pragmatic way of dealing with each item on
that agenda.
It will apply processes and ways of doing things that have been successful
in the past.
It will go beyond even the emergencies of hunger and poverty and lead us, we
can realistically hope, step by step towards a means of practical,
continuing cooperation and perhaps some form of pragmatic world governance.
We should give serious thought to focussing on our varied dissents and
bringing the wide variety of dissenters together in some such way as this.

As Geoff Edwards says, "What is needed is a campaign to develop a publicly
digestible, coherent,
multi-lateral package explaining alternative economics, then to promulgate
it."


James Cumes
http://VictoryOverWant.org



----- Original Message -----
From: "Geoff Edwards" <g.edwards@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, September 09, 2002 3:12 PM
Subject: Re: NYTimes.com Article: Devotion to Free-Market Makes for
Ineffectual Policy


>
> In the long run, superior ideas prevail, even over power. Or more
precisely,
> power aligns itself to the most powerful ideas. However, the process may
> take decades and horrendous damage can be done in the meantime by
> dysfunctional ideas.
>
> It is well known in public policy circles that significant conditions
> necessary for the new ideas to prevail include:
>
> *  the internal contradictions of the old ideas must be commencing to
assert
> themselves; these ideas are no longer serving the interests of the key
> people affected;
>
> *  there must be a new, coherent paradigm ready to be pressed into
service;
>
> *  the advocates of reform can tap into several different social problems
at
> the one time.
>
> The internal contradictions of neo-classical economics are now pressing
> themselves upon the consciousness of many commentators. The question is,
is
> PK ready for a transforming shift?
>
> I think not quite. Although there may well be a coherent alternative
ready,
> I am not so sure that it is packaged in a form that makes it easy for
policy
> analysts and decision-makers to pick up and adopt. Also, I am not
convinced
> that PK has adequately tapped into the peace, green, justice and
development
> communities. So I suggest that neither the second nor the third conditions
> are yet satisfied.
>
> What is needed is a campaign to develop a publicly digestible, coherent,
> multi-lateral package explaining alternative economics, then to promulgate
> it.
>
> Geoff Edwards
> PhD Student
> Griffith University
> Brisbane, Australia
>
>