Roos points out that according to the IMF, 40% of African countries are now in high risk of debt distress. Debt is still very pertinent and will become even more so over the next years. #AfricanMonetarySovereignty#MES_Africa2019
Roos points to Latin American countries that ran into debt crises in the 1820s, and how they then stopped paying external obligations. Bond holders took huge hit & countries only resumed repayments once econ crises had passed. #MES_Africa2019 #AfricanMonetarySovereignty
New wave of speculative lending in 1920s and debt crises followed in 1930s in Latin America and Europe. A series of defaults followed. This gave the countries breathing space to recover. This is in stark contrast to today's system. #AfricanMonetarySovereignty#MES_Africa2019
After Bretton Woods broke down, debt crises hit again. The way creditors responded was different this time - massive bailout loans from 1982. Since then stark decline in incidents of sovereign defaults. #AfricanMonetarySovereignty#MES_Africa2019
Today enforcement of international debt contracts is more effective than ever. Three structural changes are particularly relevant to understand this: 1) concentration of financial institutions & systemically important players with financialization #AfricanMonetarySovereignty
Roos calls this a "rise of creditors cartell". We see this more recently with Greece - whose debt was held by 10-20 systemically important private bondholders who could coordinate among themselves. V. different from case of 1820s. #AfricanMonetarySovereignty#MES_Africa2019
2) Another importance change was the formation of the IMF, which since the 80s became the international financial policeman of the Global South. IMF intervenes to discipline & make it more likely that countries will repay. #AfricanMonetarySovereignty#MES_Africa2019
3) There are also lots of ways that "discipline" is internalized too. Roos makes the connection to domestic political economy factors - some internal actors have vested interests in such discipline (not the working class btw). #AfricanMonetarySovereignty#MES_Africa2019
Really nice summary by @KaiKodden on the key points in the conference debate so far, and the policy proposals and strategies that have come up. Summarized in these slides 👇 #AfricanMonetarySovereignty#MES_Africa2019
Koddenbrock and Sylla draw on the work of Pouemi on monetary dependence in their analysis.
They start with the point that international trade brings with it the functional need of a dominant currency that assumes the role of a valued commodity itself. #AfricanMonetarySovereignty
They go on to unpack the global hierarchical multiplicity of currencies. They find that the West African slave trade was a major driver of the rise of capitalism, but did not lead to the need to import Sterling/Franc just yet. Pre-capitalist logic. #AfricanMonetarySovereignty
They study the Cowry shell in particular, which was a regional currency preferred in Mali and Nigeria - major sources of slaves since 1500s. #AfricanMonetarySovereignty#MES_Africa2019
Sylla (@nssylla) picks up where Koddenbrock left off, by laying our the double face of monetary dependency. They see this as related to subordinated integration into a global & imperialist monetary system and as the underside of economic dependency... #AfricanMonetarySovereignty
... this leads them to argue that a minimum in terms of monetary sovereignty is necessary for more economic sovereignty, but also that formal monetary sovereignty is not enough to progress along the spectrum of monetary sovereignty. #AfricanMonetarySovereignty#MES_Africa2019
Sylla presents what they consider the neocolonial economic model that was dominant 1960-1990. They define neocolonial as coexistence of formal independence w/advanced & renewed forms of subordinated integration with former metropoles. #AfricanMonetarySovereignty#MES_Africa2019
Here is their view of the contemporary economic model, which involves the "sound finance" view (neoliberal policies), new instruments of consent (through structural & legal restructuring) & economic and monetary dependence becoming more abstract. #AfricanMonetarySovereignty
(conclusion continued)
... to achieve more monetary and economic sovereignty, the control over the national banking and financial sector is necessary, as well as the retreat from globalist policies destined to comply with the dictates of global finance.#AfricanMonetarySovereignty
While Bitcoin was first presented as a technical apolitical currency by libertarians, we know payments are always political. @rohangrey lays out some of the many alternative ways of approaching digital currencies & electronic payments. #AfricanMonetarySovereignty
Grey goes on to lay out the possible implications of various institutional arrangements of digital currencies, including for fiscal policies, monetary policy, banking - and even labor and public investment! #GND #AfricanMonetarySovereignty#MES_Africa2019
Up next is Reda Mokhtar El Ftouh, who takes a historical perspective on what makes currency reform more or less likely to succeed. #AfricanMonetarySovereignty#MES_Africa2019
Ftouh lays out a schema of different types of currency reforms, considering their relation to materiality/abstraction or systemicity (x axis) and it's relation to market access and stability of purchasing power (y). #AfricanMonetarySovereignty#MES_Africa2019
Ftouh: Monetary creation is dynamic, determined by market mechanisms, by contracts & by the legal rights they produce. Meanwhile, currency reform is a way to determine a framework that can constrain and/or nudge monetary creation in one way or another. #AfricanMonetarySovereignty
While NGOs and IFIs are arguing that strengthening local currency bond markets (LCBMs) are positive for sustainability and stability.... #AfricanMonetarySovereignty#MES_Africa2019
The predicted social economic consequences of LCBM in Africa according to the CwA: 1) creation of domestic markets 2) creation of long term domestic institutional investors 3) creation of safe asset classes (derisking) #AfricanMonetarySovereignty#MES_Africa2019
Banse argues that with the creation of these markets, we'll likely see the further shrinking of domestic policy spaces, domestic capital only in niches, and the fixing of African economies at the service of global production networks. #MES_Africa2019#AfricanMonetarySovereignty
2) the development of market-based finance facilitates Germany's access to African economies, not just through financial channels, but it's also likely to facilitate developmnt of German global production networks in Africa.#AfricanMonetarySovereignty
Max Ajl (@ajl_max) on what delinking would look like on practice for Tunisia. He lays out an agro-ecology and food sovereignty strategy (or an unwalked peasant path) as an alternative. #AfricanMonetarySovereignty#MES_Africa2019
Here is our commentary on how the 2024 Economics Nobel integrates colonialism into economics, while leaving a colonial worldview intact (with @SurbhiKesar & @devikadutt). To explain how & why they do this, we go back to the colonial origins of economics. epw.in/journal/2024/4…
As Econ is increasingly being challenged for not adequately dealing with issues of racialization & imperialism, the "colonial turn" in economics that AJR represent seems to offer a defense. But they don't deal with the fundamental problem: the Eurocentric view of capitalism.
A Eurocentric view is one that assumes the development of capitalism evolved in the global North in a rational manner, based on a range of internal factors, distracting from the violent processes of exploitation & colonial extraction that shaped development & underdevelopment.
After the intro by @pritishbehuria & @GoodfellowTom (linked to above), you can read the interventions summarized in chronological order.
I was up first, focusing my intervention on the problem of lack of South-centered theorisation in development studies devstud.org.uk/2023/02/28/the…
Next up was @Kamnatweets, calling for a deliberate deconstruction of our projections of 'development', picking apart the 'black box' & reckoning with the range of political causes UK Development Studies programmes serve, intentionally or unintentionally, devstud.org.uk/2023/02/28/loo…
Building on scholarship by Amin, Quijano, Sanyal, and feminist IPE, we see a radical decolonization agenda as one necessitates unpacking how dominant approaches may hinder the study of systemic processes associated with decolonization, such as structural racism and imperialism.
This entails analyzing and challenging Eurocentrism in economics, but also seeking to foreground theoretical frameworks which might be more useful for studying systemic processes that lead to various form of subordination.
We engage with 2 main camps in the financialisation lit: 1) largely descriptive studies of how financial institutions, actors, motives & practices have expanded in recent decades (e.g. Krippner, Epstein), focusing on quantitative changes.
We call it the 'expansion' view.
2) More qualitative studies of how finance has come to dominate other realms of the economy, which often see the productive marriage between finance and production as in severe crisis, as the golden age of capitalism has come to an end. We call it the 'divorce' view.
What happens when 7 scholars from different heterodox traditions, including Marxism, Post-Keynesianism & Dependency Theory, get together to work on finance?
It actually did not descend into total chaos 🤯
Check out our research agenda on international financial subordination 😊
We identify how different heterodox & disciplinary traditions bring different strengths to the table for conceptualising how developing economies remain in a subordinate position in the global monetary and financial system, and how this shapes the ways in which finance operates.
We argue that an agenda on international financial subordination (IFS) would benefit from a sustained engagement with heterodox traditions that have been the most explicit and systematic in their analysis of finance in the periphery: Marxist, PK & dependency theory scholarship.