Want to feel good about the short term world outlook?

5 April 2008

Subjects:

Progress

Tony Curzon Price (London, oD at the Progressive Governance Summit):

Then listen to the strategy taking shape here at the Progressive Governance Summit.

The world economy needs:

some good news to shock it out of the current financial-induced crisis

a Doha trade deal to provide the structural basis for renewed growth

domestic policies to make the benefits of growth equally distributed

an aid deal to make the most vulnerable nations ascend to the liberal world order

an international financial regulatory system providing transparency and even bail-out mechanisms

The financial crisis provides the impetus for getting a trade deal done before the US president swap. In the bad news is the good news that now is the moment to take control of global capital flows. There was huge consensus amongst the progressives here, with just 3 real flies in the ointment:

food price rises are undoing the reform work undertaken in countries with large poor populations

energy insecurity is a real problem

china, russia, the middle east and the US are not around the table of progressives

Maybe the most striking thing is that the Washington consensus has morphed into the "Liberal Left" consensus: free trade and strong international institutions. As the Austrian Chancellor said, the free-er the private sector, the stronger need be the international institutions that frame it.

Pascal Lamy and Dominic Strauss-Kahn are at the heart of the Liberal Left order that is emerging: the first thinks he can deliver a trade deal, and the second thinks he can turn the IMF into the tamer of world finance. Francois Mitterand would have been proud of these "poulains".

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