wide eyed wonderings of the undecided

[questions in bold my answers below]

The main reason for this march is based on the fact that global international decision making processes are not democratic but rather ruined by “political elites and unaccountable corporations — not the views and values of the world’s people”. This is insane. We have elected our world leaders based on the fact that we think they are the right people to lead us on key critical global decisions.

78% of the population did not vote Labour – not considering the unknowable amount of illegal and unregistered workers in this country who aren’t allowed to vote, yet remain vital to the economy. This does not even begin to approach the question of how shallow that democratic choice is – I had to chose between labour and Tory.

‘Critical global issues’ are not separate from the political/corporate/institutional powers/ ‘key decision makers’ they respond to. Instead, the ‘global financial crisis’ is inextricable from power – the problem here is not that we elect people to respond to global issues which are ‘out there’, but that we (semi) elect leaders who constitute these global issues.

This crisis is not a separable ‘fact’ from people’s lives – democracy is a fairly hollow notion if it doesn’t encompass one’s work and economic life – the financial crisis is a very real aspect of everyday life for people – a real democratic choice would be exercising democracy in the workplace.

How in the world can it be more democratic…If we can’t trust them to make the right decisions then we are pulling the rug from under the fundamentals of democracy.

Governments don’t act in a natural setting; there are many different economic limits and imperatives which frame the choices governments have.

With regards to access to power, a very limited number of people have access to ‘key decision makers’. Those that do tend to be top CEO’s/gov officials/civil society leaders, who move in very small social/political circles, and influence these decision makers. The majority of the population are not in a position – literally – to share in the upper echelons of political power. A march like tomorrow’s is an opportunity for this majority to have their individual and collective aspirations voiced, recognised and be of influence.

Also, the summit is being held for exactly the reason the people are marching….

No it isn’t.

Firstly, the notion that a group of 20 people could come together in a room and create such massive outcomes for the majority of the world’s population is something to protest about in itself; it represents a profound failure of democracy.

G20 suggest they are working towards a restoration of the economy to what it was before, albeit a ‘healthier’, stronger and altogether more entrenched version. But what was that economy before? Restoring what economy?

Real hourly wages for about 80% of the workforce in the US are at about their 1979 level

Real income has fallen for the average person in the US and UK since the 2000.

Since 1987 there has been a $375billion NET transfer from developing countries to the developed world (that’s more than a reverse Marshall Plan).

From 1980 to 2000, the ratio between CEO pay and employee pay changed from 50 to 525 x. So, whilst both the marchers and the G20 may be talking about economic recovery and stability, their ideas and experiences of both could not be more different. Surely this changed discrepancy in earnings demonstrates the need for ‘employees’ to protest about their experiences of an unstable economic and working life.

The fact that the summit is held shows how they are working together and trying to negotiate the best way of out this mess.

No doubt that the members of this summit are working together to best negotiate this mess, but that negotiation won’t be to defend the interests of 95% of the world’s population. No G8 meeting in history has.

The marchers assume the politicians will sit there with cigars, giving each other brown envelops of cash and back scratching. The politicians have put every penny they have into every possible “public best interest” cause with this recession.

As an aside, this summit cost £19 million to stage. Gulp… I hope those hotels and restaurants are employing a lot of people…

The public interest does not include the billions which government spends subsidising arms manufacturers. I’d also argue that the best public interest would be not to bail out banks who then repossess the houses of their borrowers (like Northern Rock), or subsidising the ill-fated salaries and pensions of investment bankers. This money could, and should be spent on actual growth-creating investment like green technology etc, or indeed buying banks to run them for the interest of the public, not profits and shareprice

This march is being held to make the summit aware of “putting people first”….. what? How have they not put people first to date in this recession? The boom and lies/corruption built up over YEARS, probably about 20.

This crisis is not an outcome of a particular set of bad decisions/lies/corruption, but is the outcome of a system of organising society and economies that has fostered the circumstances I have mentioned above. The economy has never functioned to put the vast majority of people first.

Boom and bust is inevitable in world economics.

Real hourly wages for about 80% of the workforce in the US are at about their 1979 level.

CEOs (for top 350 companies according to Business Week) pay in 2000 was £14 million, whilst employee pay was £27,000.

I think it was in a 1996 ‘bust’ AT&T fired 40,000 employees, their share price rocketed up, instantly making their CEO £5m

The global poor have rode out every boom & bust – securing their dollar a day.

If Boom and Bust may be inevitable (though of course nothing is), it seems to be a permanent boom for some, and a permanent bust for others.

The current world leaders could only do so much prior to the bust to prevent it. Now, they are doing everything possible to help the people out of this. Investing in multinational global organisations is not for the benefit of the corporations, it is for the benefit of the people.

For the benefit of some people. Not very many.

If those companies/banks went bust……… that would be real worldwide disaster and people would be suffering 1 million times more than they currently are.

Taking away 1000000x the dollar a day, would indeed be a disaster. But its no picknick now. Really-existing-capitalism in boom time did not and can not deliver progress for the vast majority of people who are the foundations of it.

The march will be excellent for awareness but i think they have missed the point on this one.

Many people will miss the point, especially the 20 in the meeting.

Governments can’t pledge money they don’t have and at the moment, the majority of the states are on the brink of bankruptcy.

I agree in a way, but the US went bust with the Nixon shocks in 1973, that hasn’t stopped their state subsidised military and stock market since.

That is a harsh reality that no march, regardless of the amount of people attending, will change over night.

Totally agree. A general strike might – after all what secured welfare states and the new deal etc?

Politicians standing out on a balcony declaring that they are going to invest billions in 3rd world or green energy means nothing.

Agree entirely

They can pledge it, but there is no cash there to deliver.

They did a remarkable job finding billions to bailout the banks, and still find cash left over to pay for nuclear bombs (trident). In many ways it’s not about pledging new cash, its about reorganising the way that cash gets handed around and to what.

What this march should be about is getting China to do more. That is where the problem is, both economically and on climate.

I really don’t know much about this, but as I understood it, China subsidise the US economy by holding trillions of $ in reserve and flooding the US/UK service economy with real goods at dirt-cheap prices. But yeah, China is an awful state.