“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.” – H.L. Mencken
The bureaucrats from the world’s twenty largest economies did not want to pick a more obvious day for the G20′s facetious attempt at tackling on the world’s economic woes in London, so April 2nd became the consensus, rather than April Fools’ Day. Despite the anticipation of the forum and amid the peaceful protests from the public to coerce the world leaders’ actions, I am still having a hard time determining which of the following actions, executed by the international community this year, is more pointless: last month’s arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir or the forums to be held by the Group of 20 and the Group of 8 this year?
The Group of 20, originally created as a forum for public-sector financial executives, is now visited by heads of states looking for an excuse and opportunity to wine and dine with the very cash-flow controlling cohort whom could not prevent the world’s domino-effect economic collapse. The designations, G-20 and the G-8, are exactly as they sound: elitist and exclusive; this is not the approach to solving the world’s economic woes. The best way to approach the status quo is to first eliminate the designations, G-5, G-7, G-8, G-10, G-20, or any other arbitrary grouping of countries. Manufacturers of private jets and companies like Gatorade should be the only entities permitted to use the prefix, G, for branding purposes.
Secondly, I propose replacing these grouping of countries with the already established annual economic forum, the World Economic Forum or WEF. The Swiss forum is older than the G-20 establishment and operates in an open forum manner. It is attended not only by the industrialized world’s bureaucrats, but by business leaders, activists, and representatives from virtually every country, big or small. Unlike the G-20, growing the world’s economy isn’t the only focus of the WEF; there are a myriad of issues brought to the forefront including human rights violations, global terrorism and violence, and social development. To read my recap about this year’s World Economic Forum in February please visit this link: http://www.kevinwoghiren.com/2009/02/2009-wef-annual-meeting-recap/. The WEF continues to garner more respect each year from the international community for its inclusiveness and efforts towards social responsibility, thus making it a credible and viable replacement for the current grouping of countries based solely on economic prowess.
Despite my criticism of the G-20, I will be following it closely this week as frameworks for future major financial developments, such as a universal currency and global accounting principles, could be established in this year’s London Summit.
Image is everything. You be the judge and decide for yourself which website looks like it really cares about the world’s economic and social development: http://www.weforum.org/ (World Economic Forum) or http://www.g20.org/ (G20).