[Peace-discuss] A coherent alternative

[C. G. Estabrook]

[The absence of the left, correctly described in the British business 
press... --CGE]

	Incoherent dreams
	BY EDWARD HADAS

A great age of protest should be dawning. The global mismanagement of 
the financial system has led to a deep recession. Intellectual paralysis 
has gripped the authorities and their policy response has been risky. 
After such failure, the political leaders gathered in London for the G20 
conference deserve a serious challenge. Sadly, all they are getting are 
the senseless slogans of a hippie festival.

The manifesto of the G20 Meltdown group, which managed to collect a 
scraggly band of a few thousand malcontents on Wednesday, borrowed a 
piece of contemporary rhetorical vacuity from President Barack Obama. 
But their “Yes we can” answered questions that were depressingly naïve – 
“can we guarantee everyone a job, a home, a future?” and “can we make 
capitalism history?” The audacity of hope was not matched by a 
discussion of means.

Of course, demonstrations aren’t the natural home for intellectual 
rigour, but this effort is particularly fragmented and foolish. It’s a 
shame, as the world’s leaders really do have a big ideological gap to 
fill. In the two decades since the fall of Communism, they have mostly 
been guided by a slogan of their own: “Trust the financial markets”. 
That now sounds almost as simplistic as the protesters’ plan to “abolish 
all borders and be patriots for our planet”.

The G20 doesn’t have time to develop big ideas during their meeting. 
There are too many disasters to be averted, not to mention petty 
squabbling over hedge-fund regulation and executive pay. But the next 
generation of leaders needs to get finance right, to balance the global 
economy and to keep development on track. That requires a new 
intellectual framework.

Protesters who look like they just want a street party aren’t likely to 
be up to the challenge. Sadly, the more intellectually sophisticated 
Left seems to be hardly more capable of helping out. Any protester who 
can articulate a coherent alternative to the establishment’s tattered 
notions really could change the world.

<http://www.breakingviews.com/2009/04/02/G20%20protests.aspx>

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