Orthodoxy or Reevaluation at the G20?
The big news today is all about the G20 Summit and whether the cohort of global leaders can find enough common ground to acually move forward with common action rather than ceding to the forces of chaos, dull thinking, and protectionism.
One of the key conversations is what is the appropriate role of regulation vs. opportunity facilitation in rebuilding the financial system. This has, historically, been a highly ideology-charged argument with little room for middle ground. Macro-economic health would come through more government regulation and stimulus, or alternately, by getting out of the way of private enterprise.
Where I hope we get after this crisis, and where it seems like the larger part of my generation is at least relatively comfortable with as a starting point, is a more nuanced notion of what a "good" market looks like. We can affirm that markets have great power to distribute goods and unleash opportunity, but at the same time, recognize that they can enable highly concentrated wealth that does not respect even minimum standards of global social equity. We can be excited about markets and at the same time recognize that they often fail spectacularly to meet the full spectrum of needs we have as a society and create incentives for exploitative, abhorrent behavior which we don't want to condone.
At the end of the day, I tend to believe that our larger macro-economic problems have everything to do with ideology that calcifies to orthodoxy, rather than ideology that exists as failable guiding principle. It's a problem, for example, when "Deregulation" becomes a Platonic form of "economic good" rather than an occasionally powerful but sometimes damaging tool for delivering services more widely and effectively. It seems to me that the conversation we need to have is what values and goals we have as a society as a whole, and which of them tend to be served well by the economy and which not so much.
To keep track of the G20 and get some provocative thought, check out some of the following links:
- At Stake Are More Than Banks- Nick Kristoff
- Three Things the G20 Must Get Right - BBC
- The Finance 2.0 Manifesto - Umair Haque
- Reimagining Value For a Post Crisis Economy - Steve Wright
Nathaniel Whittemore
is the founder of Assetmap. Previously he was the founding director of the Northwestern University Center for Global Engagement.
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