open Democracy News Analysis - A crisis-opportunity moment, Paul Rogers - Comments

John Baring on "A crisis-opportunity moment"

John Baring — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 22:49:23 +0000

Mr Greenspan remarked to the US Congress' House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform: “Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief”.

Perhaps many of the problems over the last months have come from "the lack of self interest" of many types of financial institutions, banks, insurance companies, hedge funds among others. Perhaps the individuals involved in those institutions have looked to their own self interest before that of their institution or their society. When people are paid substantial sums for their work in generating paper profits, it is easy to neglect the interests of these institutions/societies.
Regulation may be an answer but pain from the results of neglecting the interest of the greater good sometimes is better at advocating a change. This crisis has been building for many years and only now has a real correction occurred but I wonder if this need for the self interest of the institution or the society as a whole before that of the individual has been understood.

precycled on "A crisis-opportunity moment"

precycled — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 09:59:43 +0000

David, I can sense the frustration and despair which I'm sure is shared by almost everyone who has worked on any global issue at any time over the past 30 years. If we extrapolate from such experience there is little to offer besides hopelessness. However Paul Roger's article suggests a kind of judo of the spirit, where the current conditions are turned into opportunities. The financial crisis offers a lesson for the elite that their fortunes are tied to those whose unpayable debts triggered the collapse. As Lawrence reminds us above, we're all in this together. So I applaud your choice to respond from the part of you which harbours hope against the odds. Bring on the revolutionary innovations!

Anne, yes the idea that somehow it's ok to systematically remove nature couldn't be more flawed. It's good to hear you address this head on since it's curiously rare to see any solution that does more than tinker with this issue. What do you think of my proposal below which was presented to government ministers at the UN Annual Ministerial Review this summer in New York. (See page 5,6 for the full texthttp://www.stakeholderforum.org/fileadmin/files/AMR_2008/AMR-Outreach-080703.pdf). I'm sure this idea can't be original so I'd be grateful to be told where it has come up before.

Thanks

James

Reversing the global loss of nature

There remains a risk that some governments and land-owners could destructively cash-in on the market value of natural resources or land. An additional global action is vital to launch the era when humanity learns to cooperate with nature. People need a renewed self-image, not as masters of the planet but as guardians. As a rhetorical gesture this is meaningless but as an international treaty it would be profound. All land, sea and non-renewable resource ownership title would be interpreted as a title of guardianship of the ecological capital on behalf of future generations. All rights for access and use of natural resources would be interpreted as applying only to the renewable harvest, which diminishes neither biological diversity nor productivity.

Where ecological capital has been damaged, a suitable remedy would be for access to transfer to a community-based trust (of landless people). Since this reduces the land’s market value there is an economic incentive for owners to protect ecological capital. A further incentive could be provided for resource and land owners without an interest in guardianship. They could bid for a proportion of available investment flows (from the above two proposals) which would compensate them for the transfer of title to a community-based trust. This scheme could run as a Dutch auction with lowest bids winning a share of funds. Such a bid has already been made by Ecuador to keep their oil in the ground.

Anne Baring on "A crisis-opportunity moment"

Anne Baring — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 14:09:33 +0000

It will not be possible to build a peaceful world or anything else until we review and reformulate our relationship with the planet on whose well-being the ultimate well-being of each and all of us depends. We need to redefine the premises inherited from our Judeo-Christian past which led us to believe, falsely, that we had been given dominion over the earth. We are still in thrall to this belief and, until we face its implications and effects, we will continue blindly and inexorably, on the same path as before. Even the World Innovation Foundation is apparently thinking in terms of humanity, not of the planet as a whole. I look forward to seeing what it suggests. Anne Baring

Not logged in Lawrence Efana on "A crisis-opportunity moment"

Not logged in Lawrence Efana — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 16:46:23 +0100

Rogers' paper solicits for [new] ideas. We have had most such ideas delivered already, some of which resound in different senses in above three comments. To pin all down, it appears to me the main problem of the title, which ever way one interprets its scope, boils down to one important question; that of: what type of world do we want for us and the future generations?

Besides the current concrete problem of the global financial mess, there must be other ways to see and label the problem "systemic" in 'singular' and also in broadest 'collective' senses, hence embraces: (a) the nation-states defined by levels of development and scopes of interests; (b) the micro and macro regional integration interests complicated by readiness to protect; (c) the reality and paradoxes of idea of commitment to a global world - one world], matched by distance and formalisations; (d) the misconception and differences of meanings or perceptions of global threats; and (e) the values we as individuals and systems hold or generate, and the manner in which priorities or choices are made from those stand points - their effects on what are possible or not possible to agree on and execute in terms of the question of how institutions are set-up to be run at their various interrelated levels.

I mean to point out that the idea of "common good" often gets lost in these at both the nation-state and international levels. The consequence is we see the "talking shop" at its best, but wonder about the results measured in terms of quality and sustainable achievements. Opportunities offered by "cruel" experiences of crises in systems therefore are realized in "stop-gap" measures scarcely sustainable in the long-run: what we wish to see or want!

CRISES ARE BULLS AND TAKING THEM BY THE HORNS, WE HAVE SEEN IS A SLIPPERY POLITICAL AND STRATEGIC INTERESTS ACT, RAISING THE OPEN QUESTION: WHO BENEFITS AT THE END OF ALL? The financial/economic crises are currently tasking the political quality of answers to the question at national, regional and global levels.

I cannot help sounding pessimistic - more so as a so-called "third-world" scholar in the first world, where if agencies cannot locate you as a "tool" you are done! Crises "should" present an opportunity, including moments to reflect and do something concrete. The fear is now that the world and powers-that-be drive people and systems to meaningless levels parallel by denial and sentimentality, in some cases with the consequences: (i) dis-empowerment, alienation, paralysis and normlessness. The critical masses able to ask the question. what do we want for ourselves and generations to come is getting thinner and thinner - losing ground, with the result that political parties, backed by technocrats are winners who take all.

They draw-up the guidelines and make decisions. As elite bodies therefore, notwithstanding noises of democracy and representation culture in politics, we are seeing the masses apathetic. "Swings" good though in politics, are finding counterparts in voting turn-overs in national elections here and there. SIMPLY STATED, SOMETHING IS SICK IN OUR SYSTEM. Here lies the opportunity to more meaningfully try to understand idea of crisis and do something amidst the fear of talking-shop, and window-dressing there still to add up and get business going as usual. That mentality must change now if we are serious.

First world and its citizens have learned taking cover and still cry out that POWER CORRUPTS, BUT THAT ABSOLUTE POWER CORRUPTS MOST. How are we to argue these in terms of: (i) the greed that leaves many vulnerable and poor; (ii) the levels of national and global inequalities, (iii) the failure to heed the Club of Rome warning, far back in the late sixties and early seventies, that we were heading for development and environmental crises if things were not moderated,and so on. The small eruptions seen here and there were not enough to address our morals, which all boiled to sham with the idea of New world economic and political order.

IN CONCLUSION, WE NEED NOT DWELL IN THE PAST, MANY MIGHT RIGHTLY ARGUE. IT IS THEREFORE NOW TIME TO SEE WHETHER THE SUBMIT ON 15 NOVEMBER, AFTER THE AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, WOULD SHOW THAT WE HAVE LEARNED AND THEREFORE ARE NOW EQUIPPED WITH BETTER LESSONS AND MORAL COURAGE TO REFORM OUR SYSTEMS AND TOGETHER BUILD A BETTER PEACEFUL WORLD WITH SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OPTIONS FOR ALL NOT JUST THE FEW.

Lawrence Efana [Finland]

davidhill on "A crisis-opportunity moment"

davidhill — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 16:05:55 +0100

Sorry precycled, the copy and paste was not 100% regarding my reply so I post again !

Thank you for your very
constructive reply.

Over the last twenty-years having
at first hand met, discussed and communicated with so-called change-masters,
super-rich and leading politicians concerning world problems throughout the
world, I have come to the conclusion that they do not really care. the major
philanthropists move their billions into Foundations so that they do not pay
any tax but use the money/wealth as usual for their own means. if you ever
undertake an analysis of the richest people you will see that their Foundations
go up in value every year and where a very small proportion of their wealth is
actually spent on charitable endeavours. This is a truism if you undertake such
an analysis.

Governments from wealthy nations
are very much the same and where nationalistic values override global values
and sustainable ethics and blueprints.

Therefore in my mind based upon
personal experience with those who can really change the world, I cannot see
any meaningful change emerging, not until we have people with a clear vision of
where we are all heading and realize the folly of our present economic systems
et al.

Over the couple of weeks I shall
be putting forward an alternative way forward for the world through the
thinking of my Foundation. This is revolutionary to say the least but I am
afraid that is what it will take to secure the future of humanity.
This will be published on the Press TV website and which is part of my series on
global poverty.

Thank you again for your thoughts
which are also on the right lines,

Dr. David Hill

World Innovation Foundation
Charity (WIFC)

Bern, Switzerland

Ps. The reason for Press TV is
that they are an 'independent' source unlike what many think and where I have
also found that the vast majority of the media are duplicitous in siding with
the present system due in part to their owners vested interests in the system.
Indeed, we had some bad press from even Nature magazine at the start of this
year which had all to do with the WIF's Bird Flu strategy in the field. It was
the WIF-Shortridge Strategy which was unveiled in Thailand in January. But
because a field strategy (that worked in Hong Kong in 1997 and stopped a
pandemic happening then, and hundreds if not millions of lives in the process
saved, through the swift intervention by Prof. Kennedy (Ken) Shortridge) had no
real drug input (billions have already been made in profits out of this false
way forward as there are no real cures for this by the large pharmaceuticals) ,
the pharmaceutical companies through Nature editors wanted to destroy this
field strategy(Money as usual going before people's lives). And the very reason
why the article was printed on the very day that the keynote speech was given
by prof. Shortridge in Thailand to discredit Shortridge and the WIF's field
strategy. It did the trick for them as sponsors removed their possible funding.
This will be completely exposed by the end of this year and where it shows that
even prestigious magazines as Nature are used by powerful economic forces to do
their dirty work.

davidhill on "A crisis-opportunity moment"

davidhill — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 16:03:09 +0100

Dear precycled,

Thank you for your very constructive reply.

Over the last twenty-years having at first hand met, discussed and
communicated with so-called change-masters, super-rich and leading
politicians concerning world problems throughout the world, I have come
to the conclusion that they do not really care. the major
philanthropists move their billions into Foundations so that they do
not pay any tax but use the money/wealth as usual for their own means.
if you ever undertake an analysis of the richest people you will see
that their Foundations go up in value every year and where a very small
proportion of their wealth is actually spent on charitable endeavours.
This is a truism if you undertake such an analysis.

Governments from wealthy nations are very much the same and where
nationalistic values override global values and sustainable ethics and
blueprints.

Therefore in my mind based upon personal experience with those who
can really change the world, I cannot see any meaningful change
emerging, not until we have people with a clear vision of where we are
all heading and realize the folly of our present economic systems et al.

Over the couple of weeks I shall be putting forward an alternative
way forward for the world through the thinking of my Foundation. This
is revolutionary to say the least but I am afraid that is what it will
take to secure the future of humanity.
This will be published on the Press TV website and which is part of my series on global poverty.

Thank you again for your thoughts which are also on the right lines,

Dr. David Hill
World Innovation Foundation Charity (WIFC)
Bern, Switzerland

Ps. The reason for Press TV is that they are an 'inpendence' source
unlike what many think and where I have also found that the vast
majority of the media are duplicitous in siding with the present system
due in part to their owners vested interests in the system. Indeed, we
had some bad press from even Nature magazine at the start of this year
which had all to do with the WIF's Bird Flu strategy in the field. It
was the WIF-Shortridge Strategy which was unveiled in Thailand in
January. But because a field strategy (that worked in Hong Kong in 1997
and stopped a pandemic happening then, and hundreds if not millions of
lives in the process saved, through the swift intervention by Prof.
Kennedy (Ken) Shortridge) had no real drug input (billions have already
been made in profits out of this false way forward as there are no real
cures for this by the large pharmaceuticals) , the pharmaceutical
companies through Nature editors wanted to destroy this field
strategy(Money as usual going before people's lives). And the very
reason why the article was printed on the very day that the keynote
speech was given by prof. Shortridge in Thailand to discredit
Shortridge and the WIF's field strategy. It did the trick for them as
sponsors removed their possible funding. This will be completely
exposed by the end of this year and where it shows that even
prestigious magazines as Nature are used by powerful economic forces to
do their dirty work.

precycled on "A crisis-opportunity moment"

precycled — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 15:01:23 +0100

David, I bet an organisation like yours has much to say beyond the despair expressed above. I'd love to hear it. Evidently we need innovative solutions not catalogues of demise.

May I suggest a good starting point is to match the scale and urgency of the problems to designing sufficiently powerful solutions. If this is done then the '10 years of pain' option would apply to the nightmare scenario. There is no reason to believe that getting things right be the 'pain' option.

If you had examined the work on the site mentioned above (http://www.blindspot.org.uk) you would have in your hand the necessary innovations for ethical/sustainable markets and reversal of weapons spending trends.

These innovations would handle the root causes of most global problems including climate change, loss of resources, pollution, armed conflict and population. However there would be legacy problems requiring extra measures, such as the inequalities of wealth that you mention. These problems also have solutions, so long as action can be taken before tipping points of irreversibility. For inequalities it seems what's needed is a renewal of the dominant culture where surplus wealth earns status. Better if status was gained according to the good which surplus wealth could do. This is well expressed in an article written in 1889, http://www.visionsofgiving.org/document.php?loc=3&cat=4&sub=12.

The trick, since we don't have another 100 or so years to sort this out, is to make it happen somehow. One suggestion would be to remove the ability to secrete wealth in off-shore tax havens. This would reveal the excess wealth of companies and individuals. Rather than trying to change the culture by force, it should be possible to make a global treaty between governments to invite all super-rich to take part in a dialogue amongst themselves on how to make that change. Perhaps the only remedy needed to entice engagement with the dialogue would be for tax authorities everywhere to share information about all those who decline to take part.

But is this happening already There are many examples of wealthy folk engaging in philanthropy but has anyone heard of a global movement working in this direction?

davidhill on "A crisis-opportunity moment"

davidhill — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 15:00:43 +0100

Normal
0

We have clearly ‘missed a unique chance to sustain humanity
in this century by not changing our basic economic structures and allowing the
present financial market system to prevail.

When one considers what the
future holds, a world population of between 9.5 and 10.5 billion by 2050
(possibly even up to 12 billion), ever-dwindling natural resources to support
human life and the dire effects of climate change through carbon and pollution
emission, is it not clear that we have to change our economics to ‘Ethical and
‘Sustainable economics? For if we carry on with the present capitalist economic
system, where the very few become rich beyond their wildest dreams and the
majority are kept in relative poverty through the crumbs that drop from the
rich mans table, our young and future generations to come will eventually have
to endure immeasurably suffering. Indeed, governments are still presently
blinded by current economic dogma and minority vested interests that do not
look after the well-being of all people.
Therefore we have to change to new economic systems that are sustainable and
where the needs of the vast majority of the people are addressed. In this
respect it is a little know fact but it only takes a reduction of no more than
a 15% drop in global oil supply to bring eventually the whole of the global
economy to its knees.
We have therefore to supplant the present capitalist systems and economics with
‘sustainable systems and ‘need economics before it is far too late to change.
That does not mean that we do away with 'markets', as 'markets' are the only
way in which trade occurs. It is how we operate those markets is the problem
for sustainability and public need.
But unfortunately to allow this to happen, governments should have started the
critical need to change to these ‘ethical economic structures at the start of
the credit crunch and should not have supported the banking system as they
have. In this respect we would have had a decade of comparative hardship but
where we would have eventually attained a new way forward for humankind based
upon sustainability and necessary human need economics. Now, having rescued the
banks and other large corporate entities we are still on the same road to our
ultimate destruction as a species. For nothing has and will really change, as
the same system will in principal be with us, ‘capitalism in another disguise.
Unfortunately governments are in the main dictated too by big business and
where whose only aim is profit, no matter how they achieve it. Considering this
the world will continue in decline in human development terms and where at the
end of this road awaits a nightmarish vision for humankind. Therefore wouldn’t
it have been better to change now, go through 10-years of pain whilst we forge
new equitable economic systems and then have a lasting environment for all
generations to come. But no, governments and big business will not allow this
to happen and accept the inevitable dire problems that they will cause through
still adopting the basic premise of the capitalist system – profits, greed and
self-interest to the detriment of all humankind. That is why governments now
spend around £1 trillion on armaments and defence alone every year as they know
that the capitalist system will eventually lead to global wars and aggression,
as nations eventually fight for ever depleting natural resources under the
dictates of the ‘capitalist market forces and economic principals - the law of
the fittest and strongest and who will win through. But this time there will be
NO winners it has to be said. We have now therefore lost a major chance in
providing humankind with the means to a sustainable future in this century and
where our political leaders should reassess their economic strategy, for what
they do now will affect the very survival of the human experience itself.

But having said all the above
there are many skeptics who by their very complacency do no service to humanity
or even their families and children if they have any. For it will not be them
or I who will suffer the symptoms of dire complacency in no more than 50-years
time, but our younger generation now. Therefore they go along in their own
denial thinking, but they do not see what that will bring them.

The main thing is that we have to
change, as if not, what I foresee from just a common sense perspective will
happen. The denialists even believe that when natural non-recoverable resources
to sustain life become extinct that there will be no major global wars and basically
live in a Utopian world.

For too many people are not
realistic even when the writing is clearly on the wall. They seem to put their
heads in the sand and just hope for the best and that we shall never experience
the nightmare scenario that is clearly on the horizon for humankind in this
century.

Dr David Hill

World Innovation Foundation
Charity (WIFC)

precycled on "A crisis-opportunity moment"

precycled — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:51:49 +0100

Yes, the world power structure has failed everyone besides the rich. However fixing this with an alternate, competing world power structure is not an obvious winner. Co-opting new institutions is not difficult for those inclined. Hurriedly-established institutions would be even easier.

Yet the crisis-opportunity moment that Paul Rogers outlines suggests another kind of power structure more difficult to co-opt - the power of ideas whose time has come. How about a world parliament, not of territorial representatives, but of thinkers willing to represent a 'G-everyone'. Open Democracy seems well suited to the task.

This need be no talking shop. A globally-connected democracy of ideas could strengthen the ideal of global security into a small bundle of policies and initiatives able to subvert, judo-style, the weak but dangerous ideas still clinging within the established order.

For example, the disastrous recklessness of financial institutions makes this the right moment to relieve them of their self-appointed right to generate the money needed by the rest of us. Richard Douthwaite shows how money can be publicly supplied http://www.feasta.org/documents/moneyecology/contents.htm. Paradoxically this would benefit the finance sector by giving money a solid basis of trust, as well as making it possible to dig ourselves out of the current financial black-hole.

Similarly the political imperative of economic growth can be used to offer a new growth model just at the moment when the old one stops working. Instead of bludgeoning economic growth, why not show how markets can be switched into reversing many of the problems which they've previously created (see http://www.blindspot.org.uk).

james greyson

sjt on "A crisis-opportunity moment"

sjt — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 12:25:04 +0100

Same comment as for the Dobson & Hayes article:

It is becoming increasingly evident to more and more people that the
corporatist state institutions we have are unlikely to save the ship.
The international order pits nation against nation in competition for
resources and labour, pampering the strong and ruining the weak.
National governments are not manning the pumps but competing for the
lifeboats. The international system has as much chance of managing a
global power-down as the unregulated banks had of avoiding the current
implosion.

It is a time for boldness. A revived respect for collective action
and a problem that can only be solved globally. Convene a world
parliament with direct elections, however imperfect, to manage the
power-down in direct negotiation with national governments. A
democratic voice to speak for whatever future remains open to us.

Do it fast, before national elites can co-opt it. Announce where and when the parliament will meet. John Lilburne would have been at the printers by now.

Stephen Taylor

A crisis-opportunity moment, Paul Rogers

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 14:26:38 +0000

The world's financial nervous breakdown is far from over. The stock-market turmoil continues, the huge debt issues left by the collapse of major institutions remain potentially destabilising, and there could still be major shocks to come (not least in east-central Europe). The reverberations of a crisis that began in the global north are working their way across the global south. These trends indicate that the convulsions of September-October 2008 - from the fall of Lehman Brothers to the emergency bailout-investment model of British prime minister Gordon Brown - are only the prelude to a worldwide economic recession.

Paul Rogers is professor of peace studies at Bradford University, northern England. He has been writing a weekly column on global security on openDemocracy since 26 September 2001

The evidence of downturn in what is still quaintly called the "real economy" is accumulating everywhere - with workers in the United States at the sharp end. There, "(employers) are moving to aggressively cut jobs and reduce costs in the face of the nation's economic crisis, preparing for what many fear will be a long and painful recession" (see Neil Irwin & Michael S Rosenwald, "Job Losses Accelerate, Signaling Deeper Distress", Washington Post, 23 October 2008). The scale of current troubles is indicated by a tale of two months: September 2008 saw more mass-layoffs in the US than any since September 2001.

The falling market indices are reinforcing fears in much of the non-west about what is to come. Pakistan, whose reserves of currency are dangerously low, is in discussion over a support-package from the International Monetary Fund which could bring it $5 billion in the short term; the Argentinean stock-market sank by over 16% on 22 October amid the planned takeover of pension-funds by the country's troubled president, Cristina Kirchner; and even China - for so long the most optimistic story in the global economy - is facing difficulties, as economic planners realise how much more must be done to satisfy an expectant population (see Jim Yardley & Keith Bradsher, "Faced with global slump, can China keep up economic growth?", International Herald Tribune, 23 October 2008).

Some on the political left see a renewed opportunity for statist solutions, while others welcome the prospect for effective local responses. But the belief in the possibility of progressive outcomes at all requires a dose of caution, for painful economic circumstances often result in people's arc of concern becoming smaller and less generous (see Andrew Dobson & David Hayes, "A politics for crisis: low-energy cosmopolitanism", 22 October 2008). After all, the world has been here before in the last four decades - twice.

In addition to his weekly openDemocracy column, Paul Rogers writes an international security monthly briefing for the Oxford Research Group; for details, click here. Paul Rogers's most recent book is Why We're Losing the War on Terror (Polity, 2007) - an analysis of the strategic misjudgments of the post-9/11 era and why a new security paradigm is needed

Two moments

The first such modern "crisis-opportunity" moment came in the early 1970s, when there was a growing awareness of the risk to global society from environmental constraints. At the time, the main concern was not about the then relatively little-understood problem of climate change but about pollution, resource-depletion and the potential of critical food shortages. The first United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (UNCHE) was held in Stockholm in June 1972; it focused attention on the "limits to growth" debate, and there was much talk of sustainability and appropriate technology.

In Britain there was at the time a vigorous if largely middle-class movement towards practical self-sufficiency, reflected in a flowering of innovative publications such as the radical science magazine Undercurrents (1973-84). Alongside this energetic current of ideas was awareness of the urgent need to reshape the world economy in favour of the majority world (see "A world in flux: crisis to agency", 16 October 2008).

In the event, plans for a "new international economic order" collapsed as retrenching industrial states focused on their own selfish interests, while stagflation and recession occupied people more than home-insulation and solar-panels. By the start of the 1980s - with two Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher elected to power - there was a new emphasis on diminishing state involvement in the economy (on the grounds that government was "the problem, not the solution") in order to allow the free market to flourish, enrich the deserving....and, eventually, "trickle down" to the poor.

The second "crisis-opportunity" moment came in the late 1990s. The anti-globalisation movement, decentralised and amorphous, announced its presence as a new radical force at the World Trade Organisation summit in Seattle in November-December 1999. It struck a chord across the world, far more widely than among its core supporters and sympathisers. The sense of unease among the world's rulers was palpable, starting with the World Economic Forum at Davos that followed; "a crack began to appear in the edifice of Western economic control" (see Losing Control: Global Security in the Twenty-first Century, Pluto Press, 2nd edition, 2002).

In the midst of this nervous elite mood, the neo-conservative wave broke in the United States. In its early phase in the first months of 2001, George W Bush implemented a raft of policy changes that revealed that any expectation that his narrow election victory might be the prelude to consensual politics was no more than a pipedream. The new administration refused to ratify the comprehensive nuclear test-ban treaty (CTBT); resisted strengthening the biological and toxin weapons convention (BTWC); allowed the anti-ballistic-missile treaty to wither; opposed commitment to the International Criminal Court; and withdrew from the Kyoto climate-change accords. The "new American century" would be a free-market era with no recognition or acceptance of environmental concerns and little interest in the global socio-economic divide.

These changes caused consternation in some European capitals; but there was also a sense that Washington would over-reach itself, and that these early unilateral excesses would not stick. This is where the 9/11 attacks were so significant. The appalling shock of those attacks, just when Washington seemed so confident, massively reinforced the belief that there was only one way forward. Even the Enron and the WorldCom scandals were sidelined as everything became subsumed into the "war on terror" - part of the much wider project of cementing the United States's global leadership (see "The world as a battlefield", 9 February 2006).

The "war on terror" waged in pursuit of this aim can seven years later be seen even more clearly for what it was and is: a deeply counterproductive endeavour that has come to cast doubt on the viability and coherence of the idea of a unipolar world (see "The war on terror: seven years on", parts one and two, 2-9 October 2008). On that basis alone, the current financial crisis and deepening recession should be a precious opportunity for a new approach to the world economy that is rooted in a genuine multilateralism (see "Wanted: a new global paradigm", 8 November 2007).

Third chance

A summit of the G20 group of leading industrial and developing countries will be held in Washington on 15 November 2008 - an occasion, therefore, when the existing G8 states will face representatives of emerging economies such as China, India, Brazil and Indonesia around the same table. The agenda and the management of the summit will be vital: it is probable that the event's leading planners will attempt to limit debate to the stabilisation of financial markets, but there is at least a chance that the question of global economic planning and governance will also be aired. Whether the conclusions begin to reflect the realities of the world economy and the needs of the majority of the world's people remains to be seen (see "Bush to host world finance summit", 22 October 2008).

It seems unlikely. At root, the delegates in Washington will be officials from governments representing that 20% or so of the world's population that has since the 1960s consistently forged ahead of the rest (see James Davies, Susanna Sandstrom, Anthony Shorrocks & Edward N Wolff, "The World Distribution of Household Wealth", WIDER Angle, 2/2006 [World Institute for Development Economics Research, Helsinki]). The membership of that elite community is global: it may be 150-million strong in China, 100-million strong in India and over 20-million strong in Brazil, as well as including the majority of the people of north America, western Europe, Japan and Australasia. But this albeit large group is decidedly not the "majority world" and the actions taken by those in officialdom rarely take account of the interests of people in this much larger category.

By coincidence, on the very day that George Bush announced the date of the G20 meeting, a report published by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) on the state of the world's cities concluded that the rising inequalities there were likely to lead to persistent social unrest and the risk of violence (see John Vidal, "Wealth gap creating a social time bomb", Guardian, 23 October 2008). The organisation had earlier confirmed that 2007 was the first year in history that the majority of the world's people were now living in cities; UN-Habitat's new analysis highlights deepening divisions within the world's cities - in wealthy countries such as the United States as well as less-developed ones like India and Brazil (see "A tale of two towns", 21 June 2007).

This is a specific yet fundamental effect of the failure of the global economy to deliver socio-economic justice. It is one that political leaders seldom acknowledge. Even more striking is that these leaders seem to be ignorant of the likely impact of several years of recession on urban populations, which in turn are far more aware of their own marginalisation than was true in the 1980s. The G20 meeting and the other summits to follow carry the risk that policy responses will again be so narrow as to focus on only a minority of the world's people. That will be deeply unethical - and ever more dangerous too.

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