Uncertainties

Dr Ngaire Woods gives the opening lecture on The Silent Revolution in Global Economic Governance. Although analysts of multilateral economic institutions have devoted a great deal of attention to the importance of NGOs and market-actors, a more important ‘silent revolution’ was taking place whose implications have not been sufficiently appreciated. The lecture began by examining the shifts in global economic power away from the states that have dominated the multilateral institutions created in the aftermath of the Second World and by arguing that a US-led system was no longer able to provide a stable set of shared public goods that were of interest to all the major players in the system. A power shift has been taking place to new players, especially emerging economies and societies, that are not currently sitting at the top table but whose involvement and participation will be crucial if effective multilateralism is to be re-established. This power shift can be seen in the areas of monetary relations, the trading order and the oil market. Existing institutions were ossified. Reform from within was proving difficult because of the ‘political toxicity’ created by earlier policies (as with the way in which the IMF handled the Asian Financial Crisis) and because of the unwillingness to consider more than minor concessions and reforms (as with limited voting reform within the financial institutions or ad hoc invitations to G8 summits). The result was a combination of rebellion (as with the role of the G20 within the WTO Doha Round) and exit (as with the marginalization of the IFIs in the financial policies of most major emerging governments and the growth of regional arrangements). The lecture considered the monetary order and global development finance as illustrations of these developments. Dr Woods argued that multilateral economic governance was in crisis because of the limits to coercive management and as a result of a reform discussion in which the currently dominant powers only listen to their own voices. Progress needed both a fundamental rethinking of relations between the institutions and the newly emerging powers and an intellectual debate driven by a far wider group of intellectuals and scholars.

Source: Dr Ngaire Woods gives the opening lecture on The Silent Revolution in Global Economic Governance, 08/10/07. (posted 01/10/2007)
http://gtg.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/





I suspect everyone is hoping that all conspiracy theories to be true, and that somebody somewhere is in control - otherwise such uncertain future of such out of hand world is! unthinkable!








It is sometimes said that God cannot be a fundamental explanation of things since explanations must be simpler than the things they purport to explain, and God is nothing if not a complex idea. If this is taken as true then that would rule out a theological theory of everything. But, Ward continued, this is a false argument for at least two reasons. First, God is traditionally taken as in fact being simple, in the sense of being indivisible, fully realised, one. Second, not all explanations of things are simpler than the things they are explaining. The multiverse is an obvious case in point.

What would God's role be in this account of creation? In short, Ward proposed, to allow only the universes that actually exist, to exist. God would decide, as it were, which universe or universes were to be realised on the basis that it is good that they are.

It goes without saying that this is speculative theology - though what is not speculative when it comes to modern cosmology? But apart from satisfying Occam's razor, it also has the advantage of integrating material observations with moral concerns, something that is natural for humans to do. To put it another way, it would be the presence of self-aware consciousness with the capacity of acting for the good that leads to a possible universe becoming actual. If that sounds a bit like certain interpretations of quantum theory, with a moral twist, then I'm sure Ward meant it.

Mark Vernon, God and the multiverse, Guardian, CiF, 7 Dec.



An optimist's sociological musings, 9 Oct 2000
By A Customer

The book of Nonzero is written in two parts, the first sociological in orientation and the second biological, and finishes up with a few guesses as to the future of mankind. The basic topic is a game-theoretical take on the positive consequences of mutually self-interested cooperation, which the author enshrines in the unfortunately ugly phrase "nonzero-summness". In a defensively apologetic appendix, Wright confesses he wanted to use this as the title. I'm glad he didn't.

The phrase "zero sum" is in fairly common use in the US, although I have not heard it much in Europe; it means an interaction where there is no overall, net gain for the parties concerned. A boxing match is a zero sum game, one man wins, another loses. In contrast, Wright's interest is in interactions whose results are positive for all parties, generating "progress". Examples are easy - consider the organisation between different people with different expertise it takes to, say, build a house.

In a necessarily thin history of the human race, Wright finds this nonzero-summness wherever he looks, elevating it, more or less, to the level of an over-arching principle of the development of life and, inevitably, the development of human society.

There is a great deal of high talk, provocative nudges, and suggestions of the perception of higher things. But Wright never seems to bite the bullet and take a controversial stance, preferring to adopt a generally optimistic attitude, rather like Rodin's thinker, looking upward, with a goofy smile on his face - cute, perhaps, but not nearly so interesting. The result is a vague sort of impression that because things have gone well in the past, Wright thinks it likely, possibly even (but not explicitly) necessary, that they will continue to go well in the future. (Perhaps only a modern American, even a Californian, could have written this book.)

A brief duel near the middle of the book with Popper's ideas on the inability of historical studies to predict future developments is unconvincing. Popper was surely discussing something considerably more refined than Wright's generalist approach - after all, one buys into mutual funds which have performed well in the past on the odds that they will continue to do so, but this still does not mean that the behaviour of the stock exchange is predictable.

This is an optimist's sociology book - read it for a nice, warm and fuzzy feel of an idea of the universe as a place built for progress, but don't expect any paradigm-changing revelations. Overall, I rate it an interesting read, but ultimately dissappointing.