Diskusija: Ekonomiskā krīze un spēki, kas attīstās: vai pasaule virzās uz jaunu starptautisko kārtību?

 20.jūnijā Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga Madridē, Prado muzejā, piedalījās Elcano Royal institūta 10.gadskārtai veltītā apaļā galda diskusijā „Ekonomiskā krīze un spēki, kas attīstās: vai pasaule virzās uz jaunu starptautisko kārtību?”. Līdz ar Vairu Vīķi-Freibergu diskusijā piedalījās Dienvidamerikas nāciju apvienības (UNASUR) ģenerālsekretāre Marija Emma Mejia, Karaliskā starptautisko attiecību institūta Chatham House direktors Robins Niblets, Petersona ekonomikas institūta pārstāvis Adams Posens no Vašingtonas, Barselonas starptautisko attiecību centra (domnīca CIDOB) prezidente Narcise Serra un Tsinghua Universitātes Mūsdienu starptautisko attiecību institūta direktors Yan Xuetong no Ķīnas. Pēc diskusijas uzrunu teica arī Viņas karaliskā augstība Astūrijas princese.
Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga par semināra tematu raksta:

„When asking: “Is the world moving toward a new international order”, it is implicitly assumed that there really was some kind of world order in place, which now is possibly being replaced by a new one. My personal impression, however, is that there never was much of a world order in the first place, so that one could fairly ask instead: “Is the world moving from one mode of international disorder towards another”, to which I personally would answer in one word: YES.

No doubt, there was a certain status quo, a temporary state of international equilibrium, which had for a long time been favourable to the growth, development and political influence of the developed nations of the Western world, most notably the USA, but also Europe, and unfavourable to the developing nations of the world, many of them former European colonies. This equilibrium was robust enough to resist such calls for change as the “Declaration for the Establishment of a new International Economic Order”, adopted by the UN General Assembly as far back as 1974. It was also robust enough to dismiss any Marxism-Leninism-inspired arguments about economic imperialism because of the demonstrably superior economic success of democratic countries following a free market philosophy over authoritarian or totalitarian regimes espousing various forms and degrees of state planned economies.
This world-wide equilibrium has been seriously disrupted within the past four years by a domino effect of financial and economic crises starting in the USA and then hitting a series of European countries. At the same time, “emerging nations”, notably the  BRIC countries, have been much less affected by the economic crisis and continue on a path of sustained growth of their economies. Considering the enormous size of their populations (BIC) or access to natural resources (fossil fuels in the case of the Russian Federation), they are more than likely to pose increasingly serious challenges to the Western world in terms of relative world economic and political influence.
After the mortality of State Communism in Eastern Europe and the economic and political implosion of the USSR in 1991, it now seems to be the turn for Classical Capitalism to show serious signs of morbidity. Those warning of the dangers of prevailing models of unlimited growth and ever-increasing demand for a finite quantity of resources on a planet of finite size long remained only voices crying in the wilderness. No serious warnings or meaningful predictions were to be heard from  honours-laden economists or financial experts, none of whom even today can offer credible explanations for why now this country, now that should be hardest hit, or why such another be spared by the crisis. Neither the International Monetary Fund nor the World Bank are able to offer socially responsible (and politically viable) recipes for recovery, except for pro-cyclical measures that increase the risk of a negative spiral of decreasing growth and increasing indebtedness in affected countries. Even the growing Non-Aligned Movement of the BRIC (meeting since 2009, 40% of world population, 14,6% of GDP) plus the IBSA (India, Brazil and South Africa, trilateral collaboration since 2003) cannot agree among themselves as to what measures, and by whom are most urgently needed to a) maintain their current advantage, b) decrease the remaining gap between rich and poor countries and c) decrease the widening gap between the very rich and the very poor within countries (both developed and developing).
World economy seems to be running on political expediency, limitless, short-sighted greed on the part of large financial institutions and international corporations and simplistic economic rules of thumb for what factors empirically foster economic growth and development, what others pave the road to failure. No sooner is one country set up as an example of success for others to emulate (vg Japan, Singapore), than the recipe they followed can be shown to fail – either in that same country (v.g. Japan,) or in another (Iceland, Ireland). The wholly unexpected financial difficulties experienced by one euro zone country after another, not to mention the catastrophic situation of Greece, have revealed serious flaws in both the logic and implementation of a common monetary zone without the solid foundation of at least minimally coordinated economic policy.
We live in a globalized world where disorder rather than order reigns, for our understanding of how it runs and how it should be run remains woefully fragmentary, incomplete and decidedly “unglobal”.