IATP’s contribution to a new report from the Progressives Ideas Network, New Progressive Voices: Values and Policies for the 21st Century, addresses the need for the U.S. to re-engage with the world. The report is intended to be a guide for the next administration as it tackles the big problems facing the nation. Recent events, including the collapse of the credit system and continued speculation in the commodity markets, drive home the pressing need for new voices to save us from the failed arguments of market fundamentals—or as George Soros puts it, “the belief that markets assure the best allocation of resources.” The “market” has yet again given ordinary citizens and the world’s poor a massive $700 billion bill for its greed and avarice.
To be honest, IATP’s contribution to the New Progressive Voices is not so much new ideas as it is common sense thinking based on historical experience. One would think that being an active player in global issues would be an obvious goal for the U.S. in a period of serious challenges that can only be solved through global cooperation. The Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive war along with a “go-it-alone” approach to international problems has left the nation isolated and distrusted in the world.
A recent New York Times article by Adam Liptak—The Supreme Court, Long a Beacon, Guides Fewer Nations—indicates how far-removed we have become. The article paints a disturbing picture of the decline of U.S. Constitutional law as a model for the world. Citing a number of studies by researchers in the U.S. and abroad, Liptak reveals a worldwide shift away from respect for U.S. constitutional law. A New York Times survey of the Canadian Supreme Court found the U.S. Supreme Court cited 12 times a year between 1990 and 2002. In the last six years, the annual citation rate has fallen to six. In the field of human rights law, where the U.S. had been a leader for decades, “foreign courts in developed democracies often cite the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights in cases concerning equality, liberty and prohibitions against cruel treatment,” according to Harold Koh, dean of the Yale Law School.
In New Voices, IATP calls for the next administration to take on a broad range of common sense alternatives to the notion that the “the market knows best,” including a proposal to create a new global food convention to address issues of food security, hunger and market stability. If any proof is needed for why this proposal is long overdue, the announcement by the UN on September 19 that 17 million people in the Horn of Africa urgently need food should help focus our attention. This represents an increase of nine million in the number of people at risk of starvation since May of this year. Is the world callously waiting to see the gruesome sight of millions of hungry people suffering and dying? That there is more than enough food in the world to prevent this sort of crisis is universally recognized.
In the New Progressive Voices report, IATP’s proposal for a global food convention includes the establishment of worldwide grain reserves to prevent price instability and starvation. The idea of grain reserves is as old as time. The U.S. had adequate reserves until Nixon came along. By the time Reagan came in preaching the blessings of the market, it was just a matter of sweeping out the bins to put an end to our reserves. In 1990, Republican Kent Conrad of North Dakota drafted one of the last bills calling for the re-establishment of our grain reserves, but it never saw the light of day.
IATP’s contribution to New Progressive Voices proposes solutions to global problems created by unregulated global markets. The next administration must work with the world community to put an end to market volatility in food and agriculture. When market fundamentals fail the credit system, there is little hesitation by government to act to save large financial institutions. When whole regions of the world are threatened with hunger and starvation, it is only common sense that we act together to find sustainable long-term solutions. Let’s hope somebody is listening to the New Voices.
Listen to a New Voice: Jim Harkness, President, IATP
