Jayati Ghosh: US, Global South, Chinese Subsidy Model, Debt, Inequality & India, Tiger economies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SyBDSvQyTc
India & Global
Prof Jayati Ghosh discussed current trends in the global economy, emerging economies in Asia, China, the US, Europe, female labor force participation, and the discipline of economics. An interesting point this conversation raised is whether China is somewhat distinct from the league of typical Global South countries economically (not politically) and whether this leads to a false impression of a global convergence between the West and the Global South.
@GIZMO3380 9天前
@adamiskandar5107 9天前
This is the most important explanation of the inequalities occurring in the world, especially Western Capitalist countries and their allies. If this is widely known to the majority of ordinary people of the world, including those in the West, there would be a strong movement to restructure inequalities in societies everywhere. This is what the very rich Capitalists are very afraid of. It's no wonder they are in full fighting mode to continue to control the organs of world power, the Military Industrial, Media and Academic Complex.
@m.rebman7221 6天前
Excellent rebuttal of Friedmanite Rajan by Professor Ghosh. An economy exists for the flourishing of the species. Whether that must entail the enrichment of the few at the expense of the few is a purely political question.
An Indian development economist. She taught economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi for nearly 35 years, and since January 2021 she has been Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA. Her core areas of study include international economics and globalisation, employment patterns in developing countries, macroeconomic policy, and gender and development.
Jayati Ghosh was born on 16 September 1955.[1] Ghosh attended Miranda House, Delhi University for her undergraduate and got her MA in economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University. She joined Cambridge University for her MPhil and PhD after winning the Inlaks Scholarship.[2] Her 1984 doctoral thesis at Cambridge University was entitled The Non capitalist Land Rent: Theories and the Case of North India under the supervision of Dr. Terence J. Byres, Geoffrey C. Harcourt and Suzanne Paine.
世界正在经历“重大调整”：经济学家 Jayati Ghosh 谈 G20、印度、中国等
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/9/12/g20_summit_india_2023
2023 年 9 月 12 日
嘉宾 Jayati Ghosh
马萨诸塞大学阿默斯特分校经济学教授，之前在新德里的贾瓦哈拉尔·尼赫鲁大学任教 35 年。
我们了解了 G20 峰会的最新消息，该峰会欢迎非洲联盟成为常任理事国，并首次在印度举行，因为该国因在会议地点附近推倒贫民窟而受到批评。 “我们看到的是一段重大调整时期，”经济学教授贾亚蒂·戈什 (Jayati Ghosh) 表示，他批评此次会议缺乏行动，而且主要是表演性的活动，例如谈判达成的联合声明没有谴责俄罗斯对乌克兰的侵略。“这次 G20 对我们这个时代的重大问题毫无作为，”戈什表示，他呼吁世界领导人采取行动应对气候变化和贫富不均。“G20 是一个潜在的非常强大的政府的集合——我想补充一下，它们不一定代表本国人民的利益——但尽管如此，这个集合在过去 12 到 13 年里并没有做太多事情。”
文字记录
这是一份匆忙的文字记录。副本可能不是最终版本。
AMY GOODMAN：拜登总统在参加印度 G20 峰会并对越南进行国事访问后已返回美国。二十国集团峰会汇集了世界许多最大经济体的领导人，但有两个人缺席：中国国家主席习近平和俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京。
一个重要的进展是，非洲联盟被接纳为二十国集团的常任理事国。非盟由 55 个成员国组成，人口超过 13 亿。
二十国集团的大部分谈判都围绕一份联合声明展开，其中包括有关乌克兰战争的部分。最终声明没有提及俄罗斯对乌克兰的侵略。相反，该文件指出，“所有国家都必须避免以武力威胁或使用武力谋求领土占有”。
与此同时，在气候危机问题上，二十国集团联合声明只是呼吁“逐步减少”煤炭的使用，而不是像许多人要求的那样逐步淘汰。声明中没有提到其他化石燃料。
二十国集团还无视各国对超级富豪征收新税的呼吁。
在二十国集团峰会期间，美国、印度、沙特阿拉伯和欧盟宣布了一项大型铁路和港口项目计划，旨在将中东与印度连接起来。许多人认为该提议是中国“一带一路”倡议的替代方案。
此次峰会是二十国集团首次在印度举行会议。在会议召开之前，印度因推平新德里的贫民窟地区而受到批评，导致许多居民无家可归。二十国集团峰会召开之际，印度总理纳伦德拉·莫迪似乎正准备将印度国名改为巴拉特（Bharat），这是一个梵语词，已经是印度的第二个官方名称，但在国际上并未广泛使用。二十国集团期间的晚宴邀请函上用的是巴拉特而不是印度。
为了讨论所有这些问题，我们邀请到了马萨诸塞大学阿默斯特分校经济学教授 Jayati Ghosh，她曾在印度新德里的贾瓦哈拉尔·尼赫鲁大学任教 35 年，是经济学教授。
欢迎回到《民主现在！》节目，教授。很高兴您能加入我们。您为什么不谈谈您认为 G20 及其谈判中所有进展的最重要成果是什么？
JAYATI GHOSH：我认为这次 G20 会议的基本教训是地缘政治就是一切，G20 领导人现在如此专注于玩他们自己的地缘政治游戏，以至于他们真的不关心整个世界需要什么。这很重要，因为，如果你还记得的话，G20 的成立实际上是因为有人认为联合国太笨重，国际组织无法做他们应该做的事情，所以我们需要一个规模更小、更敏捷的“真正重要”国家集团，他们将真正走出去做事。事实上，2009 年 4 月是他们做任何事情的最高水准。但从那以后，他们真的没有效率。
但现在我们甚至感激他们能发表共同声明。印度担任 G20 主席国的整整一年里，没有共同声明。这是第一个。而且完全是平庸之作。毫无新意。真的没有任何东西可以为世界其他国家，甚至他们自己国家的人民带来什么。
艾米·古德曼：戈什教授，我们来谈谈声明，乌克兰声明，战争声明，显然经过了 100 多个小时的谈判。我甚至没想到峰会持续了这么长时间。你能解释一下会议的结果吗？俄罗斯为何如此高兴？
JAYATI GHOSH：我认为这份声明实际上反映了印度日益增长的政治影响力，因为所有这些国家都在试图讨好印度。它所做的就是，它背离了印尼主席国在巴厘岛发表的声明，在声明中，印尼谴责俄罗斯入侵乌克兰，并要求立即撤军。所有这些都消失了。没有提到俄罗斯。这是一个非常平淡的声明，说，是的，你知道，敌对行动应该停止，各国不应该试图从对方那里获得更多领土，有点把两者等同起来。这反映了这样一个事实：让我们面对现实，七国集团目前认为印度比——或者更确切地说，印度现任领导人比他们更需要讨好，而不是坚持他们在乌克兰议程上非常强烈的立场，甚至不是坚持印度和其他国家的人权。
AMY GOODMAN：所以，习近平主席没有出席。普京总统没有出席。这有什么意义？
贾亚蒂·戈什：普京不能参加任何国际会议，因为他可能会因对他的逮捕令而被逮捕。例如，最近在南非就发生过这种情况，现在在印度也发生了这种情况。
但习近平缺席是一个相对较新的声明，这很有意思。习近平表示他不想浪费时间。就在前一周，他参加了金砖国家峰会，这是一次重要的峰会，因为它涉及金砖国家的扩张。他还要去参加其他各种国际组织。他实际上是在告诉七国集团，“我们不需要你们。”
艾米·古德曼：你能谈谈气候变化、气候灾难以及二十国集团如何应对这一问题吗？目前，全球有这么多气候活动家和全球变暖的受害者，对缺乏真正的声明深感担忧。
贾亚蒂·戈什：事实上，最令人震惊的是，G20 对我们这个时代的主要问题没有采取任何行动，这些问题不再是未来的问题。正如我们所知，这些问题都发生在我们身上。气候变化，以及世界各地发生的重大灾难，真的没有什么重大意义，只是一些毫无意义的陈词滥调。没有具体的行动计划，只有一份致力于减少化石燃料的一般性声明，好像什么都没有改变，好像世界仍然和去年一样，但事实并非如此。所以，在气候变化方面，真的没有任何有意义的行动。
没有解决重大债务危机的措施，而目前约 80 个国家的债务危机也使应对气候变化的可能性恶化。然而，这是印度在其总统任期内最关心的问题之一。莫迪实际上曾说过，“我们将努力解决债务危机。” 对此却只字未提。缺乏税收策略的问题令人震惊，例如对富人征收财富税并共享信息以实现这一目标，或者甚至提出比目前更好的企业税收协议。在寻找资源方面，各国不仅要应对减缓气候变化，而且还要应对许多国家目前面临的气候变化影响，但这些问题却一无所获。
艾米·古德曼：非洲联盟已被接纳为二十国集团常任理事国。非盟由 55 个成员国组成，人口超过 13 亿，略低于印度人口。这是南非总统发言人文森特·马格温亚。
文森特·马格温亚：国际经济合作论坛的举办总是一个神话，因为世界大部分地区都被排除在外。现在，我们正在朝着包括世界被排除在外的地区的方向迈进。
AMY GOODMAN：那么，谈谈非洲联盟现在成为 G20 常任理事国的意义，以及你是否认为 G20 的权力正在下降，而金砖国家——对吧？——巴西、俄罗斯、印度、南非，以及刚刚在南非举行的会议，权力正在上升。
JAYATI GHOSH：嗯，你知道，非洲联盟应该一直都是成员。欧盟是成员而非洲联盟不是，这太荒谬了。我的意思是，情况确实如此。所以，显然，这应该早就发生了。
但仅仅被邀请参加派对有什么意义呢？现在的情况就是这样。这是一个空谈场所，到处都是派对——没有成果，没有重大举措，没有真正改变当今世界任何事情的严肃举措，无论是关于全球健康还是全球公共投资，还是关于我刚才提到的所有问题。所以，是的，非洲加入进来是件好事，但仅此而已，因为事实并非如此——G20 不再什么都不是。
那么，这让我想到，相对于正在出现的其他集团，这意味着什么？例如，金砖国家+。我认为，我们看到的是一个重大调整时期。所以，所有这些棋子都在棋盘上移动，每个人都想弄清楚对方在做什么，但没有人能确定，而且他们可能会改变。所以，我认为我们正在进入一个重大不稳定时期，不仅仅是我们所知的全球经济不稳定，而且地缘政治也不稳定——不同的联盟，不同程度的合作或对抗。当然，它不再是单极的。但我认为没有非常明确的两极。每个人都说中国是另一个极。它还没有达到同样的水平，但肯定有更多不同的联盟。我们将看到更多这样的联盟，无论它们是否以集团的形式表达。
二十国集团正在失去权力吗？你知道，它有什么权力？在过去的 12 年多里，它用这些权力做了什么？所以，我想说，二十国集团是一个潜在的非常强大的政府的集合——我想补充一下，这些政府不一定代表自己人民的利益。但尽管如此，在过去的 12、13 年里，这个集合并没有做太多事情。
艾米·古德曼：你能谈谈二十国集团会议期间，美国、印度、沙特阿拉伯、欧盟宣布了一项连接中东和印度的大型铁路和港口项目的计划吗？许多人认为这是一项对抗中国一带一路倡议的提议。还有 MBS 进一步正常化进入国际社会，穆罕默德·本·萨勒曼？
贾亚蒂·戈什：哦，我认为 MBS 的正常化已经完成，这表明二十国集团领导人对人权的关心程度有多低。我认为，印度对纳伦德拉·莫迪的追求也体现了这一点，莫迪是印度民主倒退的罪魁祸首。
但这项新举措将取得什么成果？我等着看他们是否会言出必行。美国和欧洲曾多次试图通过“一带一路”倡议或其他计划来对抗所谓的中国影响力。但他们只是说说而已，并没有真正投入资金。不同之处在于，中国实际上投入了大量资源，并进行了重大投资。让我们看看这种情况是否会发生。目前，我有点怀疑。
艾米·古德曼：那么，呼吁 20 国集团同意增加全球富人的税收呢？在过去十年中，亿万富翁的财富增加了一倍多，从 5.6 万亿美元增加到 11.8 万亿美元。您是本周末峰会前致 20 国集团的一封信的签署人之一，签署人还包括美国参议员伯尼·桑德斯、前联合国大会主席玛丽亚·埃斯皮诺萨和其他数百人。请概述您的呼吁。这将如何解决全球不平等和日益加剧的贫困问题？
JAYATI GHOSH：您知道，这里有两件事。一是，即使我们谈论极端不平等，它仍在日益加剧。不平等正在膨胀，超出了任何历史标准，超出了我们 10 年前所能想象的任何程度。然而，我们没有足够的资源来满足人类的基本需求，不仅无法实现可持续发展目标，甚至无法应对正在发生在人们身上的灾难。
因此，我们迫切需要增加公共投资。通过这些公私合作伙伴关系，利用公共资金为私人提供资金，这个想法在原则上是可以的，但现在您需要公共资源。你绝对需要赚钱才能做这些基本的事情。
这很容易，因为存在这种淫秽的财富创造，这实际上是影响政府法规和政府政策的结果。你所要做的就是以他们甚至不会注意到的方式征收一点税，因为坦率地说，没有人注意到这种极端所有权的程度。他们并没有真正——当然，他们并没有使用所有的财富，但他们实际上并没有注意到有多少，当你身处数十亿美元的时候等等。因此，事实上，对超级富豪征收相对较小的财富税——不是对所有财富，而是对超级富豪征收——将产生非常可观的收入，即使在印度这样的国家也是如此。例如，如果你对不到一千个家庭的财富征收 4% 的税，你将获得 GDP 的 1%，这是该国总医疗支出、公共卫生支出的两倍。所以你可以很容易地做到这一点。这是一个令人震惊的问题，所有这些会议，他们来到这里谈论一些废话，废话，废话，废话，他们没有解决一些可以达成一致的容易实现的问题，只是分享信息，使人们、政府能够对 r 征收财富税。无论他们将财富存放在何处，他们都会受到自己国家的管辖。
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The World Is Undergoing “Significant Realignments”: Economist Jayati Ghosh on G20, India, China & More
SEPTEMBER 12, 2023
GUESTS Jayati Ghosh
The economics professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and previously at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, where she taught for 35 years.
We get an update on the G20 summit, which welcomed the African Union as a permanent member and took place for the first time in India as the country faces criticism for bulldozing slums near the site of the meeting. “What we are seeing is a period of significant realignments,” says economics professor Jayati Ghosh, who critiques the meeting for a lack of action and largely performative events such as a negotiated joint statement which stopped short of condemning Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. “This G20 has done nothing for the major problems of our time,” says Ghosh, who calls on the group of world leaders to act on climate change and wealth inequality. “The G20 is a collection of potentially very powerful governments — that don’t necessarily represent the interests of their own people, I might add — but nonetheless, this collection has not done very much over the last 12 to 13 years.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: President Biden has arrived back in the United States after attending the G20 summit in India and making a state visit to Vietnam. The G20 summit brought together leaders from many of the world’s largest economies, but there were two notable absences: Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In a key development, the African Union has been admitted to the G20 as a permanent member. The AU consists of 55 member states with a population of over 1.3 billion.
Much of the negotiations at the G20 centered on a joint statement that included a section on the war in Ukraine. The final statement made no reference to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. Instead, the document stated, quote, “All states must refrain from the threat or use of force to seek territorial acquisition,” unquote.
Meanwhile, on the climate crisis, the G20 joint statement called for just a, quote, “phasedown” of coal instead of a phaseout, as many demanded. Other fossil fuels weren’t mentioned in the statement.
The G20 also ignored calls for nations to enact new taxes on the ultrarich.
On the sidelines of the G20, the United States, India, Saudi Arabia and the European Union announced plans for a major railway and port project to connect the Middle East with India. Many see the proposal as an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
The summit represented the first time that the G20 has met in India. Ahead of the gathering, India faced criticism for bulldozing slum areas in New Delhi, leaving many residents without a home. The G20 summit also occurred as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi appears to be moving toward changing the name of India to Bharat, a Sanskrit term which is already India’s second official name but is not widely used internationally. Invitations to dinners during the G20 used the name Bharat instead of India.
To talk about all this and more, we’re joined by Jayati Ghosh, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, previously an economics professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India, where she taught for 35 years.
Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Professor. It’s great to have you with us. Why don’t you talk about what you thought was the most significant outcome from the G20 and all the developments within it, in the negotiations?
JAYATI GHOSH: I think the basic lesson of this G20 meeting is that geopolitics is everything and that the leaders of the G20 are so intent on playing their particular geopolitical games right now that they really don’t care about what is required for the world as a whole. And that’s important, because, if you remember, G20 was actually set up because it was argued that the U.N. is too unwieldy, the international organizations can’t do what they’re supposed to do, so we need a smaller, more agile group of the countries that “really matter” who are going to actually go out there and do things. In fact, April 2009 was the high watermark of them doing anything. And since then, really, they haven’t been effective.
But now we are at the point where we’re even grateful that they can get out a common statement. The whole year of India’s G20 presidency, there was no common statement. This is the first one. And it’s completely banal. It’s bland. There is really nothing in terms of anything to deliver for the rest of the world, or even for their own countries’ people.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Ghosh, let’s go to, speaking of statements, the Ukraine statement, the war statement, which was apparently negotiated over a hundred hours. I didn’t even think the summit lasted that long. Can you explain what came out of it and why Russia is so pleased with it?
JAYATI GHOSH: I think this statement actually reflects India’s growing political clout, because all these countries are trying to court India. And what it does is it’s a backtracking from the statement in Bali, the Indonesian presidency, in which the invasion by Russia of Ukraine was condemned and in which there was a request for the withdrawal immediately. All of that has gone. There’s no mention of Russia. It’s a very bland kind of statement that says, yes, you know, hostilities should cease, and countries should not try and get more territory from one another, kind of equating the two. And this is a reflection of the fact that the G7, let’s face it, currently sees India as more important than — or, rather, the current leadership in India as more important to court than standing up for what is clearly something very strong on their agenda otherwise in Ukraine, or even for human rights in India and other countries.
AMY GOODMAN: So, President Xi Jinping was not there. President Vladimir Putin was not there. The significance of this?
JAYATI GHOSH: Well, Putin can’t attend any international conferences in countries that — because of the problem that he could be arrested because of the warrant against him. That’s happened in South Africa, for example, recently, and, of course, now in India.
But the absence of Xi Jinping, which was a relatively recent announcement, is interesting. It’s Xi Jinping saying he can’t be bothered wasting his time. He went to the BRICS summit just the week before, and it was a significant summit because it involved the expansion of the BRICS. He’s going to various other international organizations. He’s really telling G7, “We don’t need you.”
AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk about climate change, the climate catastrophe, and how the G20 addressed it, so many climate activists around the world and right now victims of global heating so deeply concerned about the lack of real statement about it?
JAYATI GHOSH: In fact, what is most appalling is that this G20 has done nothing for the major problems of our time, and which are no longer in the future. They are all upon us, as we know. Climate change, absolutely, and the major disasters that are occurring across the world, really nothing of significance, just the usual statements that mean nothing. No concrete plan of action, just a general statement to work towards reducing fossil fuels, as if nothing has changed, as if, you know, the world is still the same world that it was even last year, which it is not. So, there was nothing, really, on any meaningful movement on climate change.
There was nothing on resolving the major debt crisis, which in about 80 countries today is worsening the possibilities of dealing with climate change, as well. And yet this was an issue that India had made one of the major concerns of its presidency. Modi had actually said, “We are going to work towards a resolution of the debt crisis.” Nothing on that. A terrible silence on the lack of taxation strategies, for example, wealth taxes on the very rich and sharing of information that would enable that, or even a better deal for corporate taxation than the one that is currently on the table. Nothing in terms of finding the resources that would enable countries to deal with not just the mitigation, but right now just the dealing with the impacts of climate change that so many are facing.
AMY GOODMAN: The African Union has been admitted to the G20 as a permanent member. The AU consists of 55 member states with a population of over 1.3 billion, just under the population of India. This is South African president’s spokesperson Vincent Magwenya.
JAYATI GHOSH: Well, you know, the African Union should always have been a member. It’s absurd that the European Union was a member and the African Union was not. I mean, that absolutely is the case. And so, clearly, this is something that should have happened much earlier.
But what’s the point of just being invited to parties? Which is really now what it’s become. It’s a talking shop, and it’s parties — no outcomes, nothing major, no serious initiative that would actually transform anything in the world today, whether on global health or on global public investment generally or on all of the issues that I’ve just mentioned. So, yes, it’s good that Africa is part of the party, but that’s about it, because it’s not — the G20 is no longer doing anything.
Now, that brings me to, then, what does it mean relative to the other groupings that are emerging? And, you know, BRICS Plus, for example. I think, you know, what we’re seeing is a period of significant realignments. So it’s all these pieces moving around on chess boards in a game where everybody wants to suss out what the other player is doing, but no one’s quite sure, and they can change. So, I think what we are entering is a period of significant instability not just globally in the economic terms as we know, but also in terms of geopolitics — different alliances, different shades of cooperation or antagonism. And it’s no longer, certainly, unipolar. But I don’t think there are very clear poles. Everybody says China is another pole. It’s not yet of that same level, but definitely there are many more different alliances. And we’re going to see many more of those, whether they’re expressed in groupings or not.
Is the G20 losing power? Well, you know, what power does it have? What has it done with that power over the last, really, more than 12 years? So, I would say the G20 is a collection of potentially very powerful governments — that don’t necessarily represent the interests of their own people, I might add. But nonetheless, this collection has not done very much over the last 12, 13 years.
AMY GOODMAN: And can you also talk about the sidelines of the G20, the U.S., India, Saudi Arabia, European Union announcing plans for this major railway and port project to connect Middle East with India? Many see it as a proposal to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative. And the also normalization even further of MBS into the international community, Mohammed bin Salman?
JAYATI GHOSH: Oh, I think the normalization of MBS is complete, and it shows how little G20 leaders really care about human rights. And I think that’s evident also in the courting of Narendra Modi, who has been responsible for quite significant democratic backsliding in India.
But what will this new initiative achieve? Well, I’ll wait to see if they put their money where their mouth is. There have been many attempts by U.S. and Europe to counter the Chinese influence, as they call it, in terms of the Belt and Road Initiative or other kinds of things. But then, they just talk a lot. They don’t really put money in there. The difference is that China actually puts significant resources and generated significant investments. So let’s see if that happens. At the moment, I’m a little doubtful.
AMY GOODMAN: And what about the calls on G20 nations to agree on increasing taxes on the global wealthy? In the last decade, billionaires have more than doubled their wealth, from $5.6 trillion to $11.8 trillion. You were among the signatories of a letter addressed to the G20 ahead of the summit this weekend, along with U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, the former U.N. General Assembly President María Espinosa and hundreds of others. Outline what you’re calling for. How would this tackle global inequity and rising poverty?
JAYATI GHOSH: You know, there are two things going on here. One is that even as we talk about extreme inequality, it keeps rising by the day. Inequality is ballooning beyond any historical norms, beyond anything we could have imagined even 10 years ago. And yet, we don’t have minimal resources to address not just basic needs of humans, not just for meeting the sustainable development goals, but even to address the calamities that are occurring upon people.
So we desperately need to raise public investments. This whole idea that you can do it through these public-private partnerships, leveraging public funds for private, is fine, in principle, but right now you need public resources. You absolutely have to generate the money to do these basic things.
And it’s so easy, because there is this obscene wealth creation, which is really a result of influencing government regulations and government policies. All you have to do is tax a little bit of that, in a way that they wouldn’t even notice, because, frankly, no one notices that level of extreme ownership. They don’t really — certainly, they don’t use all that wealth, but they don’t actually notice how much there is, when you’re into those billions and so on. So, in fact, relatively small wealth taxes on the extremely wealthy — not on all wealth, on the extremely wealthy — would generate very significant amounts of revenue, even in countries like India. You would get, for example, less than a thousand families, if you tax them 4% of their wealth, you would get 1% of GDP, which is double the total health expenditure, public health expenditure in the country. So you could do this very easily. It’s a question that is striking, that all these meetings, they come and they talk about blah, blah, blah, blah; they don’t address some of the easy, low-hanging fruit that could have been agreed to, just sharing information that would enable people, the governments, to Institute wealth taxes on the rich of their own countries wherever they keep their wealth.
In a key development, the African Union has been admitted to the G20 as a permanent member. The AU consists of 55 member states with a population of over 1.3 billion.
Much of the negotiations at the G20 centered on a joint statement that included a section on the war in Ukraine. The final statement made no reference to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. Instead, the document stated, quote, “All states must refrain from the threat or use of force to seek territorial acquisition,” unquote.
Meanwhile, on the climate crisis, the G20 joint statement called for just a, quote, “phasedown” of coal instead of a phaseout, as many demanded. Other fossil fuels weren’t mentioned in the statement.
The G20 also ignored calls for nations to enact new taxes on the ultrarich.
On the sidelines of the G20, the United States, India, Saudi Arabia and the European Union announced plans for a major railway and port project to connect the Middle East with India. Many see the proposal as an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
The summit represented the first time that the G20 has met in India. Ahead of the gathering, India faced criticism for bulldozing slum areas in New Delhi, leaving many residents without a home. The G20 summit also occurred as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi appears to be moving toward changing the name of India to Bharat, a Sanskrit term which is already India’s second official name but is not widely used internationally. Invitations to dinners during the G20 used the name Bharat instead of India.
To talk about all this and more, we’re joined by Jayati Ghosh, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, previously an economics professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India, where she taught for 35 years.
Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Professor. It’s great to have you with us. Why don’t you talk about what you thought was the most significant outcome from the G20 and all the developments within it, in the negotiations?
JAYATI GHOSH: I think the basic lesson of this G20 meeting is that geopolitics is everything and that the leaders of the G20 are so intent on playing their particular geopolitical games right now that they really don’t care about what is required for the world as a whole. And that’s important, because, if you remember, G20 was actually set up because it was argued that the U.N. is too unwieldy, the international organizations can’t do what they’re supposed to do, so we need a smaller, more agile group of the countries that “really matter” who are going to actually go out there and do things. In fact, April 2009 was the high watermark of them doing anything. And since then, really, they haven’t been effective.
But now we are at the point where we’re even grateful that they can get out a common statement. The whole year of India’s G20 presidency, there was no common statement. This is the first one. And it’s completely banal. It’s bland. There is really nothing in terms of anything to deliver for the rest of the world, or even for their own countries’ people.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Ghosh, let’s go to, speaking of statements, the Ukraine statement, the war statement, which was apparently negotiated over a hundred hours. I didn’t even think the summit lasted that long. Can you explain what came out of it and why Russia is so pleased with it?
JAYATI GHOSH: I think this statement actually reflects India’s growing political clout, because all these countries are trying to court India. And what it does is it’s a backtracking from the statement in Bali, the Indonesian presidency, in which the invasion by Russia of Ukraine was condemned and in which there was a request for the withdrawal immediately. All of that has gone. There’s no mention of Russia. It’s a very bland kind of statement that says, yes, you know, hostilities should cease, and countries should not try and get more territory from one another, kind of equating the two. And this is a reflection of the fact that the G7, let’s face it, currently sees India as more important than — or, rather, the current leadership in India as more important to court than standing up for what is clearly something very strong on their agenda otherwise in Ukraine, or even for human rights in India and other countries.
AMY GOODMAN: So, President Xi Jinping was not there. President Vladimir Putin was not there. The significance of this?
JAYATI GHOSH: Well, Putin can’t attend any international conferences in countries that — because of the problem that he could be arrested because of the warrant against him. That’s happened in South Africa, for example, recently, and, of course, now in India.
But the absence of Xi Jinping, which was a relatively recent announcement, is interesting. It’s Xi Jinping saying he can’t be bothered wasting his time. He went to the BRICS summit just the week before, and it was a significant summit because it involved the expansion of the BRICS. He’s going to various other international organizations. He’s really telling G7, “We don’t need you.”
AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk about climate change, the climate catastrophe, and how the G20 addressed it, so many climate activists around the world and right now victims of global heating so deeply concerned about the lack of real statement about it?
JAYATI GHOSH: In fact, what is most appalling is that this G20 has done nothing for the major problems of our time, and which are no longer in the future. They are all upon us, as we know. Climate change, absolutely, and the major disasters that are occurring across the world, really nothing of significance, just the usual statements that mean nothing. No concrete plan of action, just a general statement to work towards reducing fossil fuels, as if nothing has changed, as if, you know, the world is still the same world that it was even last year, which it is not. So, there was nothing, really, on any meaningful movement on climate change.
There was nothing on resolving the major debt crisis, which in about 80 countries today is worsening the possibilities of dealing with climate change, as well. And yet this was an issue that India had made one of the major concerns of its presidency. Modi had actually said, “We are going to work towards a resolution of the debt crisis.” Nothing on that. A terrible silence on the lack of taxation strategies, for example, wealth taxes on the very rich and sharing of information that would enable that, or even a better deal for corporate taxation than the one that is currently on the table. Nothing in terms of finding the resources that would enable countries to deal with not just the mitigation, but right now just the dealing with the impacts of climate change that so many are facing.
AMY GOODMAN: The African Union has been admitted to the G20 as a permanent member. The AU consists of 55 member states with a population of over 1.3 billion, just under the population of India. This is South African president’s spokesperson Vincent Magwenya.
VINCENT MAGWENYA: It was always a myth that you will have such forums for international economic cooperation running with the exclusion of large parts of the world. Now we are moving towards a direction that includes those parts of the world that were excluded.AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about the significance of the African Union now being a permanent member of the G20, and also whether you see the G20 descending in power, and BRICS — right? — Brazil, Russia, India, South Africa, the conference that just took place in South Africa, ascending.
JAYATI GHOSH: Well, you know, the African Union should always have been a member. It’s absurd that the European Union was a member and the African Union was not. I mean, that absolutely is the case. And so, clearly, this is something that should have happened much earlier.
But what’s the point of just being invited to parties? Which is really now what it’s become. It’s a talking shop, and it’s parties — no outcomes, nothing major, no serious initiative that would actually transform anything in the world today, whether on global health or on global public investment generally or on all of the issues that I’ve just mentioned. So, yes, it’s good that Africa is part of the party, but that’s about it, because it’s not — the G20 is no longer doing anything.
Now, that brings me to, then, what does it mean relative to the other groupings that are emerging? And, you know, BRICS Plus, for example. I think, you know, what we’re seeing is a period of significant realignments. So it’s all these pieces moving around on chess boards in a game where everybody wants to suss out what the other player is doing, but no one’s quite sure, and they can change. So, I think what we are entering is a period of significant instability not just globally in the economic terms as we know, but also in terms of geopolitics — different alliances, different shades of cooperation or antagonism. And it’s no longer, certainly, unipolar. But I don’t think there are very clear poles. Everybody says China is another pole. It’s not yet of that same level, but definitely there are many more different alliances. And we’re going to see many more of those, whether they’re expressed in groupings or not.
Is the G20 losing power? Well, you know, what power does it have? What has it done with that power over the last, really, more than 12 years? So, I would say the G20 is a collection of potentially very powerful governments — that don’t necessarily represent the interests of their own people, I might add. But nonetheless, this collection has not done very much over the last 12, 13 years.
AMY GOODMAN: And can you also talk about the sidelines of the G20, the U.S., India, Saudi Arabia, European Union announcing plans for this major railway and port project to connect Middle East with India? Many see it as a proposal to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative. And the also normalization even further of MBS into the international community, Mohammed bin Salman?
JAYATI GHOSH: Oh, I think the normalization of MBS is complete, and it shows how little G20 leaders really care about human rights. And I think that’s evident also in the courting of Narendra Modi, who has been responsible for quite significant democratic backsliding in India.
But what will this new initiative achieve? Well, I’ll wait to see if they put their money where their mouth is. There have been many attempts by U.S. and Europe to counter the Chinese influence, as they call it, in terms of the Belt and Road Initiative or other kinds of things. But then, they just talk a lot. They don’t really put money in there. The difference is that China actually puts significant resources and generated significant investments. So let’s see if that happens. At the moment, I’m a little doubtful.
AMY GOODMAN: And what about the calls on G20 nations to agree on increasing taxes on the global wealthy? In the last decade, billionaires have more than doubled their wealth, from $5.6 trillion to $11.8 trillion. You were among the signatories of a letter addressed to the G20 ahead of the summit this weekend, along with U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, the former U.N. General Assembly President María Espinosa and hundreds of others. Outline what you’re calling for. How would this tackle global inequity and rising poverty?
JAYATI GHOSH: You know, there are two things going on here. One is that even as we talk about extreme inequality, it keeps rising by the day. Inequality is ballooning beyond any historical norms, beyond anything we could have imagined even 10 years ago. And yet, we don’t have minimal resources to address not just basic needs of humans, not just for meeting the sustainable development goals, but even to address the calamities that are occurring upon people.
So we desperately need to raise public investments. This whole idea that you can do it through these public-private partnerships, leveraging public funds for private, is fine, in principle, but right now you need public resources. You absolutely have to generate the money to do these basic things.
And it’s so easy, because there is this obscene wealth creation, which is really a result of influencing government regulations and government policies. All you have to do is tax a little bit of that, in a way that they wouldn’t even notice, because, frankly, no one notices that level of extreme ownership. They don’t really — certainly, they don’t use all that wealth, but they don’t actually notice how much there is, when you’re into those billions and so on. So, in fact, relatively small wealth taxes on the extremely wealthy — not on all wealth, on the extremely wealthy — would generate very significant amounts of revenue, even in countries like India. You would get, for example, less than a thousand families, if you tax them 4% of their wealth, you would get 1% of GDP, which is double the total health expenditure, public health expenditure in the country. So you could do this very easily. It’s a question that is striking, that all these meetings, they come and they talk about blah, blah, blah, blah; they don’t address some of the easy, low-hanging fruit that could have been agreed to, just sharing information that would enable people, the governments, to Institute wealth taxes on the rich of their own countries wherever they keep their wealth.
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