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For InterPress Service
© Hazel Henderson, June 2002
www.hazelhenderson.com
(1120 words)

“BEYOND BUSH’S UNILATERALISM:
Another Bi-Polar World or A New Era of Win-Win?” 

Today we see the post-cold war hegemony of the USA as a unilateralist single superpower and George W. Bush's global, open-ended declaration of "war on terrorism and evil." After 9/11, Bush stampeded the US public and media into supporting him by offering no alternatives. In my 9/15 editorial, "Mr. Bush's Win-Win Option" I called for Bush to pay the US back dues owed the UN; to designate the terrorist attacks as criminal genocide, and seek UN cooperation in bringing the perpetrators before the World Court in The Hague.

Meanwhile the Bush administration’s unilateralism has shifted into even higher gear. After the unprecedented US “un-signing” of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the US is now seeking UN Security Council action to exempt the USA from ICC jurisdiction. Bush continues to abrogate treaties, including those on chemical and biological weapons, as well as the ABM Treaty so as to continue developing “Star Wars II” missile defense. Bush has targeted UN top officials including Mary Robinson, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Robert Watson as Head of the Inter-government Panel on Climate Change and Jose Bustani who headed the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Meanwhile, Sen. Jesse Helms is reviving his efforts to prevent further payment on the over $500 million of back US dues still owed to the UN, and right-winger John Bolton of the US State Dept. is even targeting Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

The United Nations is one of the pre-eminent social innovations of the 20th Century and must form the basis of a reformed multi-lateral system. My recommendations for reforming current international institutions, revitalizing the UN and expanding civic society are summarized in Beyond Globalization (1999). A more balanced world order must center on reforming global finance, taxing currency exchange and reducing the US dollar's unsustainable role as the world's de facto reserve currency (which is destructive for all countries -- even the US itself). I favor a global reserve currency regime based on the parity of the US dollar and the euro. The fundamentals in the USA and the EU suggest that the G-8 has an opportunity to peg the dollar and the euro into a trading band. This, together with the new issue of SDRs, proposed by all the IMF country members, promoted by George Soros and opposed only by the USA, would lend to more stable currency markets.

Yet, the USA continues to exhibit many vulnerabilities since 9/11: to suicidal terrorist attacks (due to its Middle East policies) to its dependency on imported oil; new revelations about Wall Street since Enron, accounting scandals; widespread corporate over-stating of profits and eroded trust in US capital markets – added to the bursting of the “dot com” and “New Economy” stock bubbles and the declining dollar.

• US global over-reach in the “war on terrorism” already leading to deficits as far as the eye can see -- combined with historically-high US trade deficits – lead to a further run on the dollar. This and the stock market doldrums make the US less attractive to the world's capital.

• More developing countries follow the lead of Venezuela and China in diversifying their currency reserves away from dollars and balanced with euros. Such a shift in dollar-euro holdings in Latin America and Asia could keep the dollar and euro close to parity.

• OPEC could act on some of its internal discussions and decide (after concerted buying of euros in the open market) to announce at a future meeting in Vienna that OPEC's oil will be re-denominated in euros, or even a new oil-backed currency of their own. A US attack on Iraq sends oil to €40 per barrel.

• The Bush Administration’s efforts to control the domestic political agenda backfires. Damage over the intelligence failures prior to 9/11 and warnings of imminent new terrorist attacks precipitate a further stock market slide.

• All efforts by Democrats and the 57% of the US public to shift energy policy toward renewables, efficiency, standards, higher gas taxes, etc. are blocked by the Bush Administration and its fossil fuel industry supporters. Thus, the USA remains vulnerable to energy supply and price shocks.

• The EU recognizes its own economic and political power as the euro rises further and becomes the world's other reserve currency. The G-8 pegs the euro and dollar into a trading band -- removing these two powerful currencies from speculators trading screens (a "win-win" for everyone!). Tony Blair persuades Brits of this larger reason for the UK to join the euro.

• Developing countries lacking dollars or "hard" currencies follow Venezuela's lead and begin bartering their undervalued commodities directly with each other in computerized swaps and counter trade deals. President Chavez has inked 13 such country barter deals on its oil, e.g., with Cuba in exchange for Cuban health paramedics who are setting up clinics in rural Venezuelan villages.

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Hazel Henderson , new book Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy (available December 2006) covers reform of capitalism and unsustainable, fossilized industrialism. She created the TV series “Ethical Markets” (www.EthicalMarkets.com) and the Calvert-Henderson Quality of Life Indicators regularly updated at (www.Calvert_Henderson.com).