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Across the Street Another, Vision of Geneva
By Fernando Lima
While Industrialized nations and developing world representatives at the “Palais des Nations” are trying to build a consensus within a liberal market-oriented world concept, across the street, thousands of civil society representatives are basically denying the buzzwords of mainstream politics. Samir Amir, one of the “stars” in Third World School of Economics in the seventies, received a warm applause when he said Wednesday that the world controlled by a triad IMF, World Bank and the WTO who is imposing a new type religion, which he called “monetarism as a form of monotheism myth.”
Speaking before an audience including “gray hairs” like former Algerian President Ben Bella, but with a significant number of youngsters, scholar Amin continued to defend the “socialist utopia” against the “market utopia” that brings along other “misconceptions” like the proclaimed “end of history”, “the end of the welfare state” and arrival of the “state of prosperity”, via capitalism.
In his attack to the “status quo” he considered UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s report as “lamentable”. There was much laughter from the crowd when he suggested it was drafted by the US State Department. Amin’s somehow black and white visions of the present world were challenged by some participants in the debate called “Globalization and Alternatives”.
Yash Tandon from Zimbabwe remarked that in spite of the grim picture being presented, the political left was not able to formulate an alternative theory, acknowledging “lack of political leadership and intellectual poverty” to fight back the myths of market-oriented societies. For the past three days leaders of developing world, some of them known for their socialist policies, have been praising their commitment to free market economies, promotion of private sector and western oriented democracies with very timid criticism to the constraints imposed on them by draconian structural adjustment programs that forced cuts on social programmes.
Francois Houtart, editor of journal “Alternatives Sud” , also speaking from the left perspective said there is a need to impose a post-capitalism vision to the present dominant neo-Keynesian vision. He conceded that even among trade union there is today the perception of “no alternative to capitalist hegemony” but on a positive note he said “there is work for everybody” in an agenda of social and political change. In what he described as “globalization of resistance and struggles” he defended a society with human values, solidarity, with “concrete utopias”.
He defended a paradigm where politics regain control over economics, a “social way of production”, new rules on debt, the reduction of the arms trade, increase taxation on financial operations, the end of tax havens, new policies for industrial production, friendly soil and water use.
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Has the world lived up to its 1996 commitments..?
Solidarity 2000 starting 17th of June!
MS's big summer event Solidarity 2000 will start very soon now, with a week-long variety of debates and arrangements. The activities range from encounters between young people from Balkan, Africa and Central America to big conferences on the planet's social development and environment.
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The 1996 Copenhagen Social Summit final report in English, French and Spanish.