global Keynesianism at the United Nations (2) - UNCTAD

["g kohler" <kohlerg@xxxxxxxx>]

Keynesianism is still alive at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)

 

Some post-Keynesians agree with some points of the UNCTAD text (below), as follows:

 

(a) global credit allocation to poor countries - Basil Moore (in ?Horizontalists?);

one, two, many global Marshall Plans - Ignacio Ramonet (in Le Monde Diplomatique, 1990s);

(b) restore demand in the world economy - Halevi and Fontaine (1998);

raise wages and mass incomes in the Third World - Elsenhans, Galbraith (1990s);

global stimulus - Mead (1989, 1994);

(c) Tobin tax - Tobin (1972); or stronger measures for similar purposes - Davidson (1990s)

(d) unequal exchange and global exploitation - Köhler and Tausch (2002)

 

Gernot Köhler

 

-----------------   UNCTAD text  --------------------------

source:

UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT,

TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT REPORT, 2002 (OVERVIEW)

 

[quote]

Overview

It is a sign of troubled times when, in the search for solutions to the most pressing policy challenges of the day, it is considered necessary to look to earlier generations for guidance: a Marshall Plan - this time to fight global poverty - a Tobin tax to check financial volatility and a Keynesian spending package to combat deflationary dangers spring readily to mind. The source of the trouble is the gap between the rhetoric and the reality of a liberal international economic order.

. . .

One voice from the past stands out in the search for a more balanced trading system. In his statement to the first United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in March 1964, Raúl Prebisch, its then Secretary-General, called on the industrial countries . . .

. . .

We also deem it undesirable to accept recommendations which tend to lower mass consumption in order to increase capitalization

. . .

Prebisch understood that recommending ?the free play of market forces? between unequal trading partners would only punish poorer commodity exporters at the same time as it brought advantages to the rich industrial core.

. . .

Rubens Ricupero

Secretary-General of UNCTAD

[end quote] (my italics)