[WSF-Discuss] [DEBATE] : Stedile v paunchy Chavez: The Economist makes fun of the WSF

[CACIM]

(Somewhere in a Rio hospital, recovering from illness, is our dear
comrade Peter Waterman, giggling away at this.)
Dear Capitalists, Admit You Got it Wrong

Feb 5th 2009 | BELEM
The Economisthttp://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13061828

OFTEN mocked for an endless ability to disagree with itself, the World
Social Forum--an annual jamboree for NGOs, anti-capitalists, leftish
intellectuals, bohemians and bishops-was unusually united this year.
More united, in some ways, than the recent World Economic Forum in the
Swiss resort of Davos, a gathering of political and corporate bigwigs
to which the social forum supposedly responds.

While Davos Man was busy looking for someone to blame for his
predicament, no such doubts troubled his opposite number in Belém, a
city on the edge of the Brazilian rainforest where mango trees grow so
tall that their fruits can shatter car windscreens when they fall. The
culprit was the whole current design of the world economy, promoting
competition. Free trade and free movement of capital needed to be
re-thought, participants insisted. Some even had ideas on what should
replace it.

The forum's main purpose is to bring together social movements (which
generally dislike being called NGOs) from around the world to network.
In that respect, it is rather like any other business conference,
though some participants carry spears and wear the feathers of various
unfortunate parrots on their heads. The forum is skewed towards Latin
America, especially Brazil. One of the founders of the forum is a
Brazilian businessman called Oded Grajew, and its first meeting was
held in Porto Alegre, in southern Brazil.

Of more than 5,000 accredited organisations, 4,193 were from South
America, roughly ten times the number of African outfits present. This
partly reflects the number and prominence of NGOs in South America and
the semi-official role which some governments give them.

This year Brazil's left-leaning government gave the forum a subsidy of
R$120m ($52m)--a piece of generosity that was not universally popular
at a time when economic growth may be on the verge of halting.

As a result, many causes dear to the Brazilian left were well
represented. T-shirts demanded asylum for Cesare Battisti, a left-wing
Italian emigre convicted of murder in Rome, who is currently in
Brazil. Banners called for Brazilian troops to be withdrawn from
Haiti, where they are doing a good job of containing violence.

A proposed hydroelectric dam on the Madeira river (a tributary of the
Amazon) was denounced, and the country's new oil find claimed for its
people. Plenty of people came from further afield, like the Catholic
Bishops' Conference of India, with a Delphic slogan: 'We would rather
sweat in peace than bleed in war.' And there were swarms of young,
largely white folk who treated the forum like a music festival.

This cacophony sometimes sat awkwardly with the presence of five
leftish presidents--Fernando Lugo of Paraguay, Rafael Correa of
Ecuador, Evo Morales of Bolivia, Hugo Chaávez of Venezuela and Luiz
Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil--who dropped in to be feted. The flurry
of helicopters and security men seemed out of place. Four leaders
(President Lula was elsewhere) appeared together at a meeting that was
billed as a dialogue with the social movements. But the talking was
mostly one way. Mr Chavez gave a long, rambling speech in which he
struggled to animate the crowd. 'Another world is possible! No!
Another world is necessary,' was as inspiring as it got.

Since its inception, the forum has struggled to get the right balance
between a range of attractions: intellectual stars such as Noam
Chomsky and Joseph Stiglitz, both of whom have addressed previous
meetings; sympathetic politicians; large NGOs and the smaller
single-issue organisations which often feel squeezed out.

This tension produced the best exchange in the presidential meeting.
'You all talk about doing these things,' said Joao Pedro Stedile, a
founder of the Landless Movement in Brazil, 'but when you met in Bahia
[in December] you just went to the beach.' 'I didn't go to the beach,'
muttered the Venezuelan leader. 'Well, perhaps those of you who are a
bit overweight didn't go,' Mr Stedile fired back.

Away from this set-piece spat, people were sitting in meeting rooms
and coming up with proposals. The ones that dealt with reforming
finance read a bit like a co-production between militant
anti-capitalists and more cautious types, which was no accident. At
the far edge was the idea that money and finance are public goods and
should be shared out accordingly, through democracy. The familiar call
for a special tax on international transactions was repeated. But
there was plenty of talk that was more moderate and rather more
interesting.

The forum suggested that the United Nations should be charged with
preventing large trade surpluses and deficits from building up.
Controls on exchange rates and the international movement of capital
should be re-established. Credit-rating agencies should be reformed,
incentives for excessive risk-taking reduced and bankers' bonuses paid
on the basis of long-term performance. Hedge funds, private-equity
firms and other parts of the shadow banking system should go, along
with over-the-counter derivatives (OTCs),
collateralised-debt obligations (CDOs) and other nefarious structured products.

In general, a 'speculator pays' principle should be introduced and
applied when things go wrong. Finally, the world's economy should get
a stimulus in the form of a green New Deal.

Bits of this belong to the realm of reality; indeed, they might have
come from America's Democratic Party, or even from the op-ed pages of
a respectable business daily. Interestingly, the forum proposed an
outright ban on subprime mortgages, even though it might have been
expected to look favourably on lending to people who would otherwise
struggle to get credit.

If some delegates seemed to have thought hard about the economic
crisis, the same could not be said of the visiting presidents. After
leading the crowd in a chant of 'Fidel, Fidel, Fidel!' Mr Chavez
joined Messrs Lugo, Morales and Correa in a karaoke rendition of
'Hasta siempre commandante'--a dirge about the exploits of Che
Guevara--before disappearing. That was far too cruel a fate for the
assembled company of Asian bishops, indigenous types in all their
finery, would-be financial reformers and anti-capitalist warriors.

----

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