[Nettime-bold] <nettime> Stiglitz is not the Answer

[Keith Hart <HART_KEITH@compuserve.com>]

The defrocked Pope

For some time, I have thought of the World Bank as a city-state cum church
along the lines of the Vatican in the high middle ages. It might be corrupt
window-dressing for an unequal society, but it does have to purvey the
Christian message at some level. The World Bank is the Bretton-Woods
institution with a remit to do something about global poverty. Economics is
its Latin, an inscrutable jargon used to pacify an uncomprehending laity.
The division between  Holy Roman Emperor and Pope, between politician and
priest, might be replicated within the Bank as the President and the Chief
Economist.

Stiglitz was Chief Economist at the Bank. He got his Nobel Prize as the
third of a trio who set about showing that most people didnt know what they
were doing in a market economy. The first two chose agriculture and
insurance as examples, but Stiglitz did it for banking. Radical for the
chief priest of the World Bank, eh? The bankers throw their money around
like blind men. But then he went doctrinally upmarket -- he claimed that
the Bank was not helping the poor (shock! horror!) and resigned. Well, this
is a perfect pitch for the New York media circuit and he is now a talk show
celebrity, with his book and all.

There are some scurrilous lefties who argue that Stiglitz's critique of
capitalism is rather shallow. He thinks the market could be cleaned up if
people has better information. Read: Christianity would work if the message
were put across more effectively. But it is not trivial when a Pope
defrocks himself and starts knocking the church. At the very least, it
should not be enough to slag him off because he is not one of us. He
represents an opportunity and there are more than one ways of playing it.

Keith Hart

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