Una nueva estructura mundial

The World in Words
Una nueva estructura mundial
George Soros
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NUEVA YORK – Veinte años después de la caída del Muro de Berlín y del desplome del comunismo, el mundo afronta otra difícil alternativa entre dos formas fundamentalmente diferentes de organización: el capitalismo internacional y el capitalismo de Estado. El primero, representado por los Estados Unidos, ha quedado decompuesto, y el segundo, representado por China, está en ascenso. Seguir la vía de la menor resistencia propiciará la desintegración gradual del sistema financiero internacional. Hay que inventar un nuevo sistema multilateral basado en principios más sólidos.

Si bien la cooperación internacional para la reforma de la reglamentación es difícil de alcanzar fragmentariamente, podría lograrse con un gran pacto que reorganizara todo el orden financiero. Es necesaria una nueva conferencia de Bretton Woods, como la que creó la estructura financiera internacional posterior a la segunda guerra mundial para establecer unas nuevas normas internacionales, incluidos el trato dispensado a las entidades financieras demasiado grandes para quebrar y el papel de los controles de capital. También debería reconstituir el Fondo Monetario Internacional para que reflejara mejor el orden jerárquico predominante entre los Estados y revisar su método de funcionamiento.

Además, un nuevo Bretton Woods debería reformar el sistema monetario. El orden de la posguerra, que hizo a los EE.UU. más iguales que los demás, produjo desequilibrios peligrosos. El dólar ya no disfruta de la confianza que merecía en otro tiempo y, sin embargo, ninguna divisa puede ocupar su lugar.

Los EE.UU. no deben dudar en recurrir más a los derechos especiales de giro del FMI. Como éstos están denominados en varias divisas nacionales, ninguna de ellas gozaría de una ventaja injusta.

Habría que aumentar el número de divisas incluidas en los derechos especiales de giro y algunas de las nuevas divisas añadidas, incluso el renmimbi, pueden no ser totalmente convertibles. Sin embargo, eso permitiría a la comunidad internacional apremiar a China para que abandone su paridad del tipo de cambio con el dólar y sería la forma mejor de reducir los desequilibrios internacionales. Así el dólar podría seguir siendo la divisa de reserva preferida, siempre que se gestionara prudentemente.

Una gran ventaja de los derechos especiales de giro es la de que permiten la creación internacional de dinero, que resulta particularmente útil en momentos como el actual. A diferencia de lo que ocurre actualmente, se podría dirigir el dinero hacia donde más falta hiciera. Existe un mecanismo que permite a los países ricos que no necesiten reservas suplementarias transferir sus asignaciones a quienes sí que las necesiten, recurriendo a las reservas de oro del FMI.

La reorganización del orden mundial no deberá limitarse al sistema financiero y deberá contar con la participación en ella de las Naciones Unidas, en particular los miembros del Consejo de Seguridad. Deben ser los EE.UU. los que inicien ese proceso, pero China y otros países en desarrollo deben participar en condiciones de igualdad. Son miembros renuentes de las instituciones de Bretton Woods, dominadas por países que ya no tienen una posición dominante. Las potencias en ascenso deben estar presentes en la creación de ese nuevo sistema para velar por que lo apoyen activamente.

El sistema, en su forma actual, no puede sobrevivir y los EE.UU. son los que más tienen que perder si no se colocan al frente de su reforma. Los EE.UU. están aún en condiciones de dirigir el mundo, pero, sin una capacidad de dirección de amplias miras, es probable que su posición relativa siga erosionándose. Ya no pueden imponer su voluntad a los demás, como el gobierno de George W. Bush intentó hacer, pero podría encabezar un empeño cooperativo para lograr la participación de los países en desarrollo y los desarrollados, con lo que se restablecería la dirección americana de forma aceptable.

De no ser así, la perspectiva es aterradora, porque una superpotencia en declive que pierda su dominio político y económico, pero conserve la supremacía militar, es una combinación peligrosa. Solía tranquilizarnos la generalización de que los países democráticos aspiran a la paz. Después de la presidencia de Bush, esa regla ha dejado de ser válida, si es que alguna vez lo fue.

En realidad, la democracia pasa por un momento muy difícil en los Estados Unidos. La crisis financiera ha infligido privaciones a una población que no gusta de afrontar la realidad dura. El Presidente Barack Obama ha desplegado el “multiplicador de la confianza” y afirma haber contenido la recesión, pero, en caso de que haya una recesión con “doble caída”, los americanos pasarán a ser víctimas de toda clase de traficantes del miedo y demagogos populistas. Si Obama fracasa, el próximo gobierno sentirá la poderosa tentación de crear alguna distracción respecto de los problemas internos: un gran peligro para el mundo.

Obama tiene la visión acertada. Cree en la cooperación internacional, en lugar de la concepción de Bush-Cheney, basada en la razón de la fuerza. El ascenso del G-20 como foro primordial de la cooperación internacional y el proceso de colaboración con los asociados acordado en Pittsburgh son pasos en la dirección correcta.

Sin embargo, lo que falta es un reconocimiento general de que el sistema está decrépito y se debe reinventarlo. Al fin y al cabo, el sistema financiero no se desplomó del todo y el gobierno de Obama adoptó la decisión consciente de resucitar los bancos con subvenciones ocultas, en lugar de recapitalizarlos por decreto. Las entidades que sobrevivieron disfrutarán de una posición en el mercado más potente que nunca y resistirán una revisión sistemática. Muchos problemas apremiantes preocupan a Obama y no es probable que preste toda la atención debida a la necesidad de reinventar el sistema financiero internacional.

Los dirigentes de China deben tener una amplitud de miras mayor aún que Obama. China está substituyendo a los consumidores americanos como motor de la economía mundial. Como es un motor menor, la economía mundial crecerá más despacio, pero la influencia de China aumentará muy rápidamente.

De momento, el público chino está dispuesto a subordinar su libertad individual a la estabilidad política y el adelanto económico, pero puede que no siga así indefinidamente y el resto del mundo nunca subordinará su libertad a la prosperidad del Estado chino.

Al convertirse China en una de las potencias rectoras del mundo, debe transformarse en una sociedad más abierta para que el resto del mundo esté dispuesto a aceptarla como tal. Como las relaciones de poder militar son las que son, China no tiene otra opción que la de un desarrollo pacífico y armonioso. De hecho, de ello depende el futuro del mundo.

George Soros es presidente del Soros Fund Management y del Instituto de la Sociedad Abierta. Su libro más reciente es The Crash of 2008 (“El desplome de 2008”).

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2009.
www.project-syndicate.org
Traducido del inglés por Carlos Manzano.

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hsgross 02:40 10 Nov 09

A great opportunity for promoting longterm geo-political stability!

AlanDR 11:24 10 Nov 09

America has considerable short term problems; however, what makes these problems linger is liberal organizations attempts to regulate. Let the weak crumble and the strong excel. If we just let capitalism work these problems will self-correct in painful BUT short order. The world is a very competitive environment at every level. The only time that an imbalance becomes acute is when attempts are made to regulate competition out of it. Every time socialism creeps in, prosperity runs out!

Now I know Mr Soros wants a new world order where he and his friends control all wealth and power. He is frantically trying to get President Obama on board which he probably will, but he will never get the true capitalist, whether it be China, India, Korea, or the billions of individuals who are not willing to turnover their future to a handful of mediocre bureaucrats. Sorry George - not interested!

acd 04:49 11 Nov 09

-the problems were created by the same people who would like to solve it... deceptive... who here trusts a liar?... its simple logic.

brodix 07:51 11 Nov 09

The simple fact is that capital is subject to the law of supply and demand. Since supply is potentially infinite, it is demand, prudent borrowers, who determine how much notational wealth the economy can hold. We avoid this natural limit on wealth by creating artificial demand, either by lowering loan standards, or creating extraneous circulation through increasingly complex "securities." Meanwhile those in control of this monetary illusion can only invest their enormous wealth by loaning it back to those whom they squeezed it out of in the first place, either directly, or as government debt.

Monarchs neglected their duties to society and lost their privileges as a result. Bankers will suffer the same fate. As responsibility for maintaining the value of the currency has been shifted to the taxpayer, so should the profits from its management. A public banking system would be incorporated at the local level and profits would fund services in the communities which create the wealth. These local banks would then be shareholders in regional and state banks, which would oversee a national bank that would be responsible for the currency.

Economic growth, like democracy, is bottom up, not top down.

A related problem is the system of public financing, where enormous bills, stuffed with enough goodies to gain sufficient support, are rammed through the system. That's not budgeting. The process of budgeting is to prioritize needs and desires, then decide where to draw the line between what can be afforded and what cannot. In the US, some years ago, there was a discussion about the "line item veto," where the president could delete any item he wished from spending bills. Obviously this would remove all power of the purse from the legislature and likely be unconstitutional. In the spirit of actual budgeting, a possible solution would be to break these bills down to their constituent lines and then have every legislator assign a percentage value to each line and then re-assemble them in order of preference. The president would then draw the line at what would be funded. This would divide responsibility, allowing the legislature to prioritize, while giving the president final authority over total spending. Since making the cut would be graded on a curve, there would be much less incentive to trade favors and the percentage system would allow legislators to fine tune their granting of favors to other legislators and lobbyists. Since local spending by the national government would be reduced, a local public banking system which recycled wealth back into local infrastructure would fill the hole.

spottery2k 09:18 11 Nov 09

George (may I call you George?) Everybody's got an idea for a new system of one form or another, but in the end it will still need people to run it. The problem with economics as a social science is that it only measures the transfer of wealth among individuals and groups under the misguided notion that it is measuring prosperity and despair, and economist look all the more foolish when they sing the praises of a booming index and indicators amidst a catastrophic job market.

Its pretty sad to think that in this day and age that people do not take seriously their responsibility to their communities as "movers and shakers" of those communities. Even the wealthy have a way of forgetting or revising the past. There was a time when the fact that government and wealth go hand in hand wasn't such a strange notion. For kings and emperors the word was also law and what passed for governing would be called corruption today. As the less privileged public became more literate with the advent of the printing press it would be within 3 centuries that a wave of revolutions would sweep through Europe and the new world, largely influenced by the new mechanistic view introduced by Newton in an attempt to create a unimpassioned and just "system" respectful of even the least privileged among us. The idea was sound, but only made it easier for the unscrupulous to gain wealth and direct the misery and disaffection of the public towards a system-scarecrow. The people would trade their belief in God for the belief in a system comprised only of people wearing hats. There was never any real separation between wealth and power so long as private wealth could concentrate in the hands of the few who would finance a firewall of disposable politicians in ritual effigy every few years to an ignorant public.

Phasor 09:58 12 Nov 09

30+ years of conservative values in US government policy with reliance of market principles and deregulation and what did we get...

The precipice of collapse of the entire economy, a de-industrialized America, soaring unemployment, increased homelessness and exacerbated income inequality.

And those commenting here want to keep going down this road? You conservatives are devoid of reality. At least, Soros wants to take a new road as do I.

MorrisonBonpasse 02:02 16 Nov 09

Mr. Soros is correct that the world's monetary system must be reformed. In his book, "The Alchemy of Finance," he wrote correctly of the need for a Single Global Currency which would achieve far more than the increased use of SDR's (IMF Special Drawing Rights).

Expanding the use of SDR's, which is not a currency as commonly understood by the people of the world, would only prolong the life of the existing dysfunctional multicurrency system. One key to the value of money is that it be trusted, and the people of the world will not trust something they cannot see or hold.

The world AND the U.S. will be better off when the U.S. Dollar is replaced by, and incorporated into, a Single Global Currency, managed by a Global Central Bank within a Global Monetary Union. In Europe, 16 countries are using one currency. The Eastern Caribbean Currency Union supports 8 countries, and the West African franc is used in 13 countries. Why not a monetary union for the 192 U.N. members? A Single Global Currency will provide the people of the world what they want - stable money, and they will trust that money when they can see it and hold it in their hands.

We don't need to wait for the further decline, and perhaps rapid decline, of the dollar to start planning for the Single Global Currency.

The primary problem with the euro and currencies of other monetary unions is that they still must co-exist within the international multicurrency system itself where the value of those common currencies must still fluctuate in value against each other. With a Single Global Currency, there are no such fluctuations, by definition.

In addition to eliminating currency fluctuations, the use of a Single Global Currency would eliminate the current foreign exchange trading expense of $400 billion annually, eliminate currency risk, eliminate current account imbalances, and eliminate the need for foreign exchange reserves.

With a Global Central Bank with a primary goal of monetary stability, global inflation would likely be lower.

The world should begin researching and planning now for a Single Global Currency, which will save the world - literally: trillions.

The Single Global Currency Assn., which was founded in 2003, promotes the implementation of a Single Global Currency by 2024, now only 15 years away, and the 80th anniversary of the 1944 Bretton Woods conference. We will reach that point through the creation, expansion and merger of currencies of monetary unions. This process will be enhanced by holding international monetary conferences, as was held in 1944. At some point, the U.S. dollar, pound, yen, and/or yuan will join a monetary union. When a monetary union currency supports a currency area of 40-50% of the world's GDP, that currency will have achieved the "tipping point" and it will be anointed the Single Global Currency. After that, the other currencies of the world will seek to join that currency.

The Single Global Currency Association's website is www.singleglobalcurrency.org. See, also, the Assn.'s book, "The Single Global Currency - Common Cents for the World," and the ICFAI University Press book, "A Single Global Currency - Perspectives and Challenges."

NimrodsBane 04:55 17 Nov 09

This New Global Architecture...?

it wouldn't happen to be in the shape of a 'pyramid' would it?

Mountern 03:34 20 Apr 10

Dear George:

This is a well written piece until it came to the part about the rest of the world will never subordinate its freedom to the prosperity of the Chinese state. In one sweeping statement you demonised China like all typical Westerner fearful of the rise of China.

Yet, in the same breath you said a declining superpower losing both political and economic dominance but still preserving military supremacy is a dangerous mix. I assume that would be USA et al.

Exactly, how a prosperous China will affect other nation's freedom is unsaid. It is sad that a man of your intellectual capability should succumb to personal biases and prejudices.


AUTHOR INFO
George Soros George Soros
George Soros is Chairman of Soros Fund Management and of the Open Society Institute.
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