The Parable Of The G-20: Blind To The Elephant

The leaders of the G-20 Group of countries who met in Washington DC for an emergency meeting to revamp the global financial landscape can be compared to the well-known story of ‘blind men and an elephant’. Like the six blind men who concluded that the elephant is like a wall, snake, spear, tree, fan or rope, world leaders grappled in bright light for six hours and yet failed to frame an action plan that could truly stimulate the global economy.

The elephant in this case is the parasitical global financial system. It has thrived all these years on the hungry stomach of starving millions, extracting every last available ounce of blood. Untamed and unregulated, it demolished the borders of the nation-state to emerge unfettered and free – unrestrained by governments, and liberated from society’s control. In the process, speculative and mobile financial capital has played havoc with the global economy. The elephant has been on a rampage.

The economic policies that remain in vogue will continue to impoverish workers, promote jobless growth, push developing country farmers out of agriculture, mine natural resources (and render the commons barren in the process), and allow corporate control over farming while aggressively pushing for one-way trade – from the rich to the developing countries, adding to global warming and thereby driving the world towards an unforeseen ecological crisis. In providing enormous bail-outs to banks, the international leadership has not only acknowledged but applauded the role played by financial robbers and business pirates.

Isn’t this a sad travesty of the truth? If you rob a bank of a few thousand dollars, you are inevitably arrested and sent to prison. If you rob the entire international banking system, you not only receive a pat on the back but also a handsome retirement package.

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