Not another New World Order

I have just finished reading Age of Consent by George Monbiot. I had never heard of him before but apparently he is a contributor to the Guardian and a left wing intellectual (although you probably figured that out when I mentioned the Guardian). He has written a book decrying the state of the world and suggesting recipes for improvement.

To mock such an effort is easy, very very easy actually. Certainly I agree with his comments about the United Nations, WTO, World Bank and IMF. These things are fundamentally evil with the exception of the UN which is just fundamentally useless. Nevertheless Monbiot's remedy is to replace these tired, discredited old institutions with all new fresh discredited institutions. It is kind of amusing to see him describe major corporations, governments and international bodies as though they were some kind of alien imposition on the hapless human race. The sad fact is that these things were all created by us doing what we do. They are not extra human, they are an expression of humans. Nevertheless Monbiot seems to think that if we tried again we'd get it right this time; as long as we listen to him. I suspect that his ideas might work were the world inhabited by six billion George Monbiots. As it is in order to make them work the new democratic institutions of the planet would need guidance from selfless, natural leaders such as, oh I don't know, George Monbiot for example. He shows a touching faith in the ability of the world to elect people to a parliament who would do something other than point out how much they hated each other.

His ideas on world trade might work if you ignored the fact that most people go into trade in the hope of making some money. He sees trade as a way of knitting the world together and he's right. Unfortunately he sees this as the point behind trade and he's wrong. Most benefits to humanity have come about as a result of people doing something else entirely. Manipulating trade to benefit some countries at the expense of others can only be done if you have a bucket load of power and a refreshing absence of morals. Most of the people who have that talent set already work for the World Bank or the IMF. Furthermore at some point or other while Monbiot is trying to use trade to raise people out of poverty the people doing the trading will expect to see a profit.

He did have a very good idea about clearing third world debt. He suggests that they simply stop paying it. This is an excellent solution but would only be successful if every heavily indebted country did it at once. If we could get that sort of consensus then the UN would be a model of good governance. Still it is probably one of the less unrealistic ideas in the book. The best idea is the removal of agriculture subsidies in places like America and Europe. This genuinely would be of help to the struggling economies of the third world and play directly to their most readily available resources; dirt and people. Unfortunately any American or European leader who attempted it would be crucified. Monbiot makes a lot of comments about the capture of western governments by vested interests but it probably is asking a little too much to expect a politician to commit public suicide on behalf of people who probably can't vote in their own country much less his.

Still it is nice to see people thinking about how the world could be better. Hopefully one day someone will come up with a solution which doesn't require that we put them in charge of everything.