Global Policy Forum

By Gus Massiah

Translation. J.M Schermann.
Coorditrad, volunteer translator (*)

The G8 should take place in France, in Evian, from June 1 to June 3, 2003. For the 28th time since 1975, Heads of State and Heads of Government of the wealthiest and most powerful countries in the World will meet, as every year, to discuss together about the most important issues. Gradually, this group of leaders has become a worldwide institution. Resistances and challenging have undergone a new vigour during the last years, with the emergence of the social and citizen global movement which we call alter-globalisation movement. They enlighten about the nature of the leading group and the consequences it advocates.

How can we characterize G8 ? It is not a global government, all the more since there is Global State. But if G8 is not the global executive power, one should not deduce that it is useless and that it is only an enactment. It is the inner circle of heads of dominating countries, the richest and most powerful of the country, the syndicate of the major shareholders of the world economy. With its periodic meetings of Heads of State and ministers, of "sherpas", permanent advisers who ensure the secretary ship, the wide mobilization of all kind of experts, the intermediaries in economic, financial, commercial and military international institutions, permanent and privileged access to medias and means of information, this club is now a permanent global institution.

At the beginning, the objective of the Club was to allow leaders to discuss about their problems and find solutions to their conflicts and contradictions. Nothing is further from reality than the vision of a unified world and without conflicts between main powers. The aim was to find, as in a very high-class English club, "Gentlemen agreements", if the leaders of the World can be called gentlemen. The discussion was about recession during the seventies, monetary and oil crisis. In a second time, and mostly with the collapse of the Soviet system which culminated in 1989, the discussion came about the rise of the hegemony of United States. Today, with the crisis of the world economy and the liberal thinking, and mostly with the American war desired and imposed, contradictions are again taking over and hang over the future of the institution.

Since the eighties, objectives have changed. New economic trends become necessary due to the turning point which begins with the fight against inflation in 1979 and the monetary policy in 1981. . G8 plays an active role to impose a credo and the lead of the neo-liberal phase of globalisation. It put forward policies of liberalization based on the pre-eminence of international investment and of so-called multinational companies, adjustment of the global market and widening of global trade, on the disengagement of States and reduction of public expenditures, on privatisations and the challenge of the status of employees and employment, on the regulation of the world economy by the global market of capital. In order to impose those policies, it relies on international financial institutions, IMF and the World Bank, into which it has at its disposal the majority of the capital; It steadfastly build the institutional frame of the neo-liberal globalisation, which determining element is WTO.

G8 is not one of the upper power authorities. It does not impose itself upon states, and, in particular, to governments of the countries which belong to it. Likewise, one should not totally underestimate the autonomy of bureaucracies, which manage IMF, the World Bank or WTO. Finally and overall, the economic power, although less noticeable, is not subordinated under governments, and even less to G8. But there is no economy which can operate without political regulation, without adaptation of institutional frames and without authorities focusing towards long-term strategic visions. Globalisation is a contradictory process, G8 has carried out a double function for reproduction of the existing order and a deep challenging for the benefit of its members. It has orchestrated the organisation of a reconquest strategy by leaders of ruling countries. It tackled decolonisation, through the management of the debt crisis and relying on the disrepute of repressive and corrupt regimes. It tacked Sovietism, through the weapons race and the spectacular ideology of human rights, relying upon the discredit of regimes that had denied democratic aspirations. It tackled the post-war social compromise, through an offensive against employees, as social status, and by relying upon liberalisation policies and privatisations, weakening of the public, state and citizen control regulation.

G8 carries on its way without being apparently bothered by the amplitude of disasters which punctuate it. However, the awareness of the damages provoked by its economic, political and military management has now become so strong and sensitive that one can talk about, today, of the expression of a global public opinion. The World into which we live is characterized by increasing inequalities, economic and social inequalities between countries and in each society; political inequalities which appear through discriminations and differentiate access to fundamental rights; ecological inequalities jeopardizing the rights of future generations; geopolitical inequalities which most striking sign is the domination of South countries which is similar to a re-colonisation. The war threat cynically programmed and heralded by United States sharpens this awareness of an unfair world which we do not want any longer.

We call into question the responsibility, about the state of the World, of the leaders of the richest and most powerful countries on Earth. One by one and altogether, they have imposed policies and make change in the direction of their own interests, of the organisation of the global economic system. They have committed their responsibility about the evolution of the situation, due to the orientations of the imposed policies and the nature of the used means to implement them.

But the contest, which asserts itself in the alter-globalisation movement, is not only about the nature of policies, and thus their consequences, about living conditions of populations of the world, it is also about the nature of this world organisation. A small group of heads of state representing the privileged people of the Planet cannot assume the monopoly to decide for everyone. It is a deep denial of democracy by an international institution which takes refuge behind a questionable power of experts, which undergo no control and is isolated from any representative authority. To those who claim over and over that the leaders of the G8 have been democratically elected, we must recall that those leaders, even if they have been elected to rule their country, have not been appointed to rule the World.

This is why the alter-globalisation movement has now come to put forward the illegitimacy of G8 to assume a leading role in the conducting of a global policy. The fact that the members of the club of rich and powerful are all, except for Canada, former colonial powers is, in that meaning, an aggravating circumstance! We challenge the legitimacy of G8 and ask for its dissolution. To those who fear that its disappearance might lead to an extra deregulation, we recall that this authority has not prevented wars and disorders, that, on the contrary, it has weakened the United Nation system, certainly opened to criticism and imperfect, but nevertheless much more legitimate. G8 started in France in 1975, twenty years further, given its illegitimacy and the consequences of its actions, let us consider that the loop must be closed and let us obtain that this meeting in France will be the last meeting of G8.

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