Economic Highlights
New Delhi,
19 December 2014
Collapsing World Order
SEARCH FOR A MIDAS TOUCH
By Shivaji Sarkar
2014 has been the worst of
the years. The world seems to collapse under the weight of totalitarianism, be
it under the States or the non-State powerful terrorist organisations in Asia,
and Africa. It also faces the worst intrusions
by trans-national corporations (TNCs) into national sovereignties. Failing
economies of Africa and the European Union are
creating threats.
The world economy is enmeshed
in global politics of conflicts and wars. As nations meet to continue with
their establishments, non-State actors tend to destroy them. In a queer turn of
events, States such as Pakistan
that supported non-State actors have become their victims.
The year has left the
world with difficult questions. Should China
fight tiny Japan and Vietnam for
areas which have little economic significance? Should the US send its
people to kill people across the world? Should Russia
send troops to Ukraine?
Are Russia and Ukraine
suffering from insecurity? Is Africa succumbing from Stateless Somalia run by
pirates to Boko Haram terrorists out to destroy Nigeria and neighbouring African
countries? Are regional groupings like the BRICS, ASEAN or SAARC the new order?
Is not the most insecure US
destabilising nations and economies through currency war across the world?
The world has become more
complex despite fall in oil prices. The poor people of India or rest
of the world know it has not happened because oil rich OPEC countries wanted to
reduce the price. This is another shadow war the US
plays by increasing its oil production to the level of almost Saudi Arabia.
The US also creates
a new market strategy to hit OPEC, which is left with the option of cutting
production and collapsing economically or maintaining it to sustain their
individual economies. It is a new kind of war that is being fought without
firing a bullet. Can oil prices remain that low for long? Is the world gaining
as the oil prices collapse to $59 a barrel from a high of $115 at the beginning
of the year or is it the beginning of the fall of neo-rich Arab nations?
It is a disturbed world.
Many parts of northern Africa, - Egypt,
Sudan, Libya or Central Africa – Nigeria, Somalia,
Ivory Coast
remain in turmoil. The US and European intervention in many of these countries and
Iraq, Middle East or Central Asia have increased conflicts.
International institutions
such as the UN system or Bretton Woods institutions have become ineffective. It
may theoretically monitor situations and produce the finest reports but cannot
suggest or impose a solution. The US controlled World Bank, International
Monetary Fund and World Trade Organisation can produce volumes on world GDP but
cannot stop the ongoing currency or trade war. Countries such as India is
having a difficult time as its rupee continues to lose to touch a bottom of Rs
68.79 in the beginning of the year and now hovers around Rs 63.
Inflation is transferred
globally to destabilise and take political control of economies through luring
talks. Each nation is specialising in ways to hurt the economy of the other in
a supposedly interdependent world. They in their “collective” wisdom do not
find a solution to the gun and drug running mafia of Latin America that run countries
like Colombia or Peru. The States
cannot stop more people being killed in Mexico
than in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq
or Central Asia – all that have seen intense US action.
Technology has shrunk the
world. Instead of it ensuring global good governance, it takes cyber threats to
the bedrooms of individuals, where they are robbed of their bank accounts,
blackmailed and suffer crimes and terrorism.
The cyber system is
leading to the collapse of the structured States and their economies. Illegal
transferring of money by cyber traders or taxi operators for legal operations
in a State has become the norm. It changes world economic and security dynamics
as money trail becomes invisible.
Gun-running, drugs and
cyber piracy are creating parallel economies within and outside national
boundaries. No wonder Prime Minister Narendra Modi discusses it eloquently. It
makes the most prosperous Indian State, Punjab for its drugs problem and the poorest West Bengal for emerging as terrorist hub, quiver. The TNCs
quiver as the US
and other nations tend to regulate these. The US national security advisor
himself does not trust them. They are accused of undermining the US economy.
The world wonders whether
a successful TNC should be its model or the most corrupt public sector in Greece that
gives strength to the Greek economy, howsoever inappropriate it might appear.
The world also has another model of the smaller city States like Singapore, Hong Kong or Shanghai.
The great powers are
finding it difficult to rein in the world. Indian Ocean rim – from South Africa to
Straits of Malacca - is emerging as the new centre of global economy. It is
also the area where world powers US,
China and emerging ones like
India
are converging. Each of them wants to change the dynamics of 21st
century economics.
Indian ambitions of
becoming hub of economy could be achieved if the Indian
Ocean rim is managed more efficiently. Modi has started that
foreign politics because he knows this is not only true about issues across the
seas but also important about domestic governance.
But he is not alone. Japanese
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, US President Barack Obama, Chinese President Xi
Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin play their foreign cards to sustain themselves
in their own countries and create new economic orders.
Indian economy, more
stable than year ago, is looking for a lasting solution. It requires deft
diplomacy, better internal governance, TNC and corporate management, tough
handling of non-State ultras and expertise in countering cyber intrusion and
invasion. India
has to look beyond the traditional. It has to create institutions – may be a
new avatar of Planning Commission - that could take holistic look from the
global and local - global – angle.
The economy now is more a
strategic issue. Modi has the advantage of starting without baggage. He has to
get rid of Manmohanomics and create a new economic order in a holistic manner
to give the country an edge in terms of sustainable agriculture, jobs, ecology
and a thriving system that leads not only its people but at least the people of
Asia and Indian Ocean rim. He has to reset the
button on the world. ---INFA
(Copyright, India
News and Feature Alliance)
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