Manifesto for a new world order

The Age of Consent

By George Monbiot
Pages: 274
Price: Rs 250

IF there's one thing that distinguishes George Monbiot from most other activists, it is the kind of adventurous life he's had, in pursuit of his ideals. The man was almost killed while pursuing investigative stories in Africa, beaten up by military police, and had a spike driven into his feet while protesting in England. These experiences ensure that Monbiot's opinions aren't dismissed as just ivory tower speculations.

Monbiot is well known for his unambiguous views on civil rights, opposition to war, and such issues. His columns for the British newspaper Guardian are widely followed, and he is one of the prominent voices against exploitation of the poor world by the rich.

In The Age of Consent Monbiot not only examines the reasons for the current world order, but prescribes his vision for a just world. The book has its strengths and weaknesses, but at the end, when he says: "Well? What are you waiting for?" you feel tempted to take the challenge.

Monbiot offers some premises and then goes about constructing his ideological fortress. The first premise is that the current world order has failed, in that millions suffer without better prospects in the foreseeable future. He proposes a replacement of the current order with a more just form of representation at the global level.

The second premise is that, since many of today's problems are caused by international policy, they can only be fought at the global level. No local community can close its borders and subsist by itself because it is connected, even if remotely, to the mechanics of the world.

To fight at the global level, what are the weapons at one's disposal? The United Nations, which was supposed to ensure peace, human rights and international justice, has all along been controlled by the five principal victors of the Second World War. The UN and its agencies aren't really democratic institutions. He argues: "The World Bank and IMF… are run on the principle of one dollar, one vote. The WTO's… principal decisions have been made during the 'Green Room' negotiations, which are convened and controlled by the European Union, the US, Canada and Japan."

The only weapon, he insists, is democracy. If democracy is the highest form of governance - despite limitations -- that nations have arrived at, Monbiot wonders why the world cannot function in a similar way. He thus makes a case for a more representative global government, with an institution he calls the World Parliament.

The World Parliament, to begin with, would be more of a lobby group than a governing authority. But it would be truly representative, because every citizen of the world would have a vote. Monbiot proposes an election where the world is divided into electorates of 10 million people each. Such a division would override compulsions of nationhood, caste, class and religion, the principal problems between and within nations. The Parliament would therefore be constituted of 600 representatives of 6 billion people.

The World Parliament would study policies of governments and international institutions, and pass resolutions and critical reports. It would expose the duplicity of such institutions, and endeavour to educate people. As it would be the only world body directly elected by the world's people, governments would find it impossible to ignore. The Parliament would also be kept clean of bureaucrats, since governments would not be involved in its functioning.

While the first half of the book calls for political equality, the second half calls for economic equality. It starts off exposing the hypocrisy of the world's financial institutions (World Bank and IMF), and how they have helped create the chasm between the rich and the poor. The world economy, he shows with ample evidence, has been rigged to make the rich world richer and the poor poorer.
He takes us back to the time when the World Bank itself was formed. The system was designed by the US economist Harry Dexter White, and imposed because the US was the world's largest creditor after World War II and other nations had to toe the line.

The culprit, Monbiot says, is not globalisation, but protectionism. Here he cuts a different path from Left activists, who argue for more trade barriers to protect local industry. The problem is, the World Bank and IMF were so constituted that the US and its allies could force the poor world to open their economy, while protecting their own economy when it suited them. Monbiot gives sufficient examples in the last two decades when the advise of the two institutions wrecked healthy economies, such as in South East Asia and South America.

But globalisation remains the only way capital can flow into poorer economies. Monbiot presents an alternative system based on globalisation, called the International Clearing Union, which promotes equitable distribution of wealth. What he isspeculating is that as the World Parliament and International Clearing Union achieve more legitimacy, the others - like UN and its agencies - become redundant.

The big weakness of this book - which he calls a 'manifesto' - is that it is almost impossible to hold a global election for a 'World Parliament'. The logistics are mind-boggling, and - in places like Sub-Saharan Africa or wild Amazon, not to speak of tin-pot dictatorships - inconceivable. He also does not detail the functioning of such a Parliament - how will it, for instance, deal with the millions of complaints coming in daily?

But for the more accessible and democratic world, this book holds great promise. There is no reason why the world can't be governed democratically. Why should we allow dubiously-elected politicians to determine our future? Why should one submit to the world order as it is today? And there is the issue of momentum - if a few countries try it successfully, others would then join. The possibilities are limitless. So… what are we waiting for?

(Dev SS)