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Unrest has
gripped Europe, the United States and Latin America. The
collapse of the old economic order, the rising power of Asia
and Africa, the opening up of new economic opportunities for
cheated nations, all these have changed the dynamics of the
international financial system.
It is laughable that some economists in Euro-American states
have been basing their analysis on unreliable statistics,
and Wall Street fleeting permutations. A solid study of the
state of the World economy should be commissioned.
G8, G20 meetings are too ad-hoc and do not go far enough.
Some of their experts suffer from ego-centric predicament.
There is need to set up a permanent international economic
institution to monitor accurately the interplay between
world currencies. The strengths of the YUAN and the ROUBLE
now have double impact on international trade and have
shaken the volatility of international liquidity.
The imperfections in the capitalist economic system has been
laid bare as its monopoly practices could not stand up to
competitions from Asian states, especially China, India,
Malaysia, Singapore and the rising South African economy.
The major problem militating against solutions of the
world’s financial disorder is the arrogant postulations of
Euro-American journalists and financial analysts, who do not
listen to the arguments of African-Asian economists. This
one man talking and the other listening to the garrulous
professor, has been the cause of the West’s economic woes.
The situation can be compared to a patient, who visits his
doctor. Without asking his patient what is the nature of the
sickness prescribes aspirin and lectures the patient on
health-care legislation in many countries.
The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
rights insists that the people’s rights to enjoy the wealth
of their nations should be respected.
Some governments devote almost half of their GDP in military
research and equipment procurement. This leaves meager
resources for economic and social causes. The social
condition of Western man and women is gradually becoming
desperate. Amidst these interlocking circles of misery,
revolutionary instincts are waxing stronger as frequent
strikes are on the rise.
Some governments undertake to police the world and proclaim
their determination to democratize ancient regimes in Asia.
This gulps up human and natural resources.
Environmental degradation has become a very important
subject, so is global warning, which leads to climatic
crisis. The amount of money needed for rehabilitation of
broken infrastructures impact on the prosperity of nations.
China suffers from this phenomenon more than any other
state. This is why they react angrily each time they are
criticized that the YUAN is over-valued.
For the Chinese, corporate finance, corporate governance and
corporate control are serious issues. For a state that has
1.3 billion population, debtor and creditor game is not
welcome. This is why capital punishment is used to deter
economic crimes.
Chinese economic policies are in self defence and so there
is little space for Western philosophical analysis of legal
arguments, even when claims to legal rationality are made.
Interpretations based on the rule of law, often meet with
skepticism because the communist system does not use the
same philosophical methods to evaluate capitalist values.
Recently, the government of Barack Obama corrected the poor
perception in American society that health-care has no
relationship with employment.
T here are still faulty planning theories, old development
strategies and activities resulting from inappropriate
economic philosophy.
Some economists have argued that investment cannot stimulate
growth. The golden age of full employment, high productivity
and low inflation seems to be a thing of the good old days.
A war economy cannot create the smooth drive to prosperity.
The volatility in international liquidity will continue to
be felt by many states that refuse to listen to others.
Perhaps, the current shaking of the world is the cyclical
karmic consequences, which the Bible says will be visited
upon generations upon generations.
After the collapse of the slave trade, the colonial
exploitation of nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America
enhanced the liquidity flow in Britain, France, Holland,
Spain and Belgium.
The post colonial economic relations favoured Europe. They
built the gigantic structures we all admire today in Paris,
London and Amsterdam.
Today, European states seem poised to re-colonize Africa.
They put out theories like “failed states” “regime change,”
and other ideas they canvass during G8 and G20 meetings,
where they blame the victims of their trade manipulations
for not doing well economically.
They then unleash the World Bank and the IMF to intervene in
“vulnerable” economies by chaining them to the debt peonage.
Partly as a result of the lack of knowledge by the officials
in African ministries of finance and the subservience of
some African Heads of State, who respond with smiles in
agreement with the most pernicious anti-African economic
policies which their former colonial “masters” prescribe,
policies like SAP , find easy acceptance.
Corruption is vilified openly at conferences but it is
condoned through trans-Atlantic liquidity transfers into
foreign banks. These funds are later treated as cash
advances that do not have to be paid back.
By some pang of conscience, Zurich no longer harbours
obviously stolen wealth, deposited by African Heads of State
like Mobutu Sese Sekou and Emperor Haile SelassieThe actions
of many banks has checkmated the free flow of illegally
acquired funds by African leaders. Also, local financial
regulatory agencies try to aid transparency.
Outsourcing
The Western nations are confronted with massive unemployment
because local companies are allowed to move their factories
overseas, where they rake in huge profits but weaken the
social stability in their own states.
I taught International economic law at Shandong University
of Science and Technology, in Qingdao, China between 2005
-2008. I also gave lectures on the subject at IBIS HOTEL,
Qingdao, which were well attended by American, Canadian and
Chinese business people.
My studies showed how outsourcing of American and other West
European companies to China quickened liquidity flow from
those nations into China.
I discovered that Afro-China trade brought into China,
colossal amounts of dollars and pounds. When I arrived in
Beijing in December 2005, I exchanged one dollar for 9.3
Yuan. By the time I left in December 2008, one dollar
exchanged for 6.7 Yuan.
The liquidity flow around the world favours China. Recently,
America complained about this worrying situation but the
Chinese are not likely to relent in their trade and
financial practices.
In China, legal institutions like Labour Law, the Law of
Contract, Antitrust Laws, Employment Law, Trade Union
Rights, Intellectual Property Litigation are in the slow
process of development.
A Canadian businessman, who regularly consulted me in
Qingdao, China, told me that he moved his business to
Qingdao in 2004. He recruited some Chinese workers, trained
them and business was good. After two years, the Chinese
workers started to leave the company.
Although he increased their salaries, the exodus did not
abate. He later discovered that the Chinese workers had set
up a similar company and were doing better! I joked that
that I was what the transfer of technology was all about.
New Books
I just got two books written by the former President Jimmy
Carter. He kept a White House Diary and Bob Woodward’s
OBAMA’S WARS.
While Jimmy Carter catalogued in readable and interesting
way, his political experience, Bob Woodward dealt more on
the Washington debate on the war in Afghanistan, fashioning
his approvals and disapprovals in cute journalistic fashion.
I had expected the renowned journalist to delve into the
political economy of American war economy and the impact of
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as other military
engagements around the world on America’s liquidity flow,
which has remained volatile and unyielding to market forces.
The European strikes in major European states, reminds one
of the SPIRIT of crises, which Karl Marx predicted would
engulf Europe leading to a socialist revolution world-wide.
What is going on in Europe is not exactly the collapse of
the capitalist system, but a pointer to the fact, that it
too, is not the perfect system. Capitalism has not taken its
message to Africa, in a way that is should have. Capitalism
should cooperate and collaborate with African states in a
mutually beneficial way to boost its liquidity prospects.
Instead, it has carried its arrogant; know all catechism
that has failed to convince its trading partners in Africa.
The Chinese have not gone to preach communism in Africa but
by their trade relations, they are impacting on the
continent inexorably. If one tells a Nigerian that the
Chinese are now the second strongest economy in the world,
manufacturing from pin to airplanes, he automatically
approves of the economic system that can enhance a country’s
growth so rapidly.
The volatile liquidity crunch in major capitalist states
cannot be apprehended by talk-show jokes, hip hop artists,
burnt-out actors, glib talk-show hosts, who are well-known
for trivializing serious issues, which they probably do not
understand, but by thinkers.
In most European states that I have revisited, I have
observed a decline in intellectual culture. In some
societies, a professor and other brain workers earn less
than the” Rambling Rose”. (Nat King Cole). The hare-brained
rapper can ride a Rolls Royce. The Cabaret stripper can
empty the super-market. Inverted values rule the waves.
The productive intellect pours scorn on the semi-literate
ranting of politicians but must feel helpless that he cannot
earn his millions. The Chairman/Managing Directors of
companies are now regularly quizzed by Senators without
entrepreneurial acumen
Until the intellectual rigour of the West returns to lead
the civilizing movement of nations, the decline will
accelerate and the volatility in international liquidity
will remain iron hot.
Professor Dr Emmanuel Omoh
Esiemokhai is the President of the proposed Afemai
University, Fugar, Edo State, Nigeria
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Published
October 4th, 2010
