United World International continues publishing papers that were presented to the Global Multipolarity Confernce held on April 29. The conference was organized by Nova Resistência (Brazil), the New International Order Initiative (Türkiye), the International Eurasian Movement (Russia), the Thinkers’ Forum (China) and the International Russophile Movement.
Today we present the speech of Prof. Dr. Fernando Esteche from the University of Plata, Buenos Aires, and Pablo Treber, employee of the Argentine Central Bank.
Context
There are three theses that structure our thinking when considering the current geopolitical moment.
The first is the emergence of multipolarity. Evidence of this is the formation of new trade and economic association and cooperation blocs, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Eurasian Economic Union, the RCEP (regional comprehensive economic association that integrates Asia with Oceania, includes as founding countries China, Japan and South Korea, three of the four largest economies in Asia) and the BRICS. In summary these are all manifestations with different degrees of consolidation that express Multipolarism and additionally develop investments and agreements of not only commercial nature but also regarding infrastructure, logistics and even defense.
The same can be said of the “One Belt, One Road” initiative (BRI) or the so-called “new silk road”, or the north-south corridor that, after the special operation in Ukraine, has been reactivated between Russia, India and Iran. All of them are evidence of the emergence of a new geopolitical logic.
Secondly, the thesis of declining of Atlanticism as a global hegemon. That is to say, the growing inability of the Atlanticist block to determine and control global social and historical production. This inability is clearly manifested with the emergence of the new blocks of Multipolarism, as in the multidimensional internal crisis of the US as well as in its defensive counter-offensive actions.
Finally, the thesis of redeployment that operates as a defensive counter-offensive trying to sustain the levels of interference or assume setbacks in an orderly manner. This, in the face of a growing incapacity of its diplomacy and of its devices for financial, monetary, and political overdetermination, causes a kind of pentagonization of foreign policy, whose main manifestation is the militaristic response of the regions.
Economic situation and Argentine singularity in the context of Multipolarity
With the operational implementation of payments in local currencies in countries such as Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, adding to which Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan and partially Türkiye as well, by definition the dollar is no longer the only globally accepted currency.
To put it in context, today the once exclusively dominant group made up of the United States, Canada, Japan, England and the European Union, currently represents 10% of the population and 31% of the Gross World Product. While the political economic relationship of the most allied BRICS, represents 40% of the population and 27% of the Gross Product.
As an immediate economic effect, the reserves of a large part of the world’s countries, which previously were made up almost exclusively of dollars, began to be transformed into baskets of currencies made up of different currencies and metals depending on the nature of their foreign trade relations.
This massive detachment of the North American currency generated an increase in its degree of liquidity; therefore, consecutive increases in the interest rate of the FED (Federal Reserve) to absorb as much of it as possible, an acceleration of inflation in the United States and, finally, a devaluation of the dollar in real terms throughout and width of the whole world.
In this context of the clear hegemonic collapse of the dollar, the political leadership of Argentina still continues on the path of “carnal” relations with the United States, and the IMF, which impose their recipes for looting through the centralization of their objectives in primary care. of the economy and the increase in exports that, necessarily, converge, in fiscal adjustment, recession and high inflation in the internal market in order to depress it and increase the exportable balances.
The most direct and painful consequence is the incessant increase in poverty and indigence, which already reaches close to 50% of the total population.
Here are some data that rigorously reflect the reality of the deepening of a colonial model and looting contrary to national development:
Around 1980, the amount of exports was 8,021 million dollars and after 42 years, where foreign-oriented policies prevailed that subordinate Argentina to being a supplier of raw materials, they increased by 1,100%, to 88,446 million in 2022.
However, under this scheme, this enormous increase in foreign currency did not translate into economic and social development, on the contrary, the primarization of the economy and the consequent opening of imports caused formal employment to fall from 77.4% to 40%. of the economically active population.
The open results: A huge increase in income dollars, and a drastic drop in work. Growth in the concentration of wealth and deepening of the main problem: the lack of employment, and its high degree of informality, which determines the high levels of poverty and inequality existing in the country.
Undoubtedly, the granting, and payment agreement of the financial services of the quotas, of exaggerated loans by the International Monetary Fund, are a main piece to anchor political / economic conditions that, every day, deepen and consolidate this path of disastrous consequences for the Argentine people.
As a result of this, and contrary to the previously explained global de-dollarization, the Argentine economy, to date, is de facto dollarized, since 100% of its international transactions are carried out in the North American currency and it maintains its foreign trade freed and in the hands of a handful of transnational companies that, determining the production, collection and distribution of the internal and external market, translate each devaluation into inflation.
This brings with it permanent pressure on the peso/dollar conversion price to increase exportable balances and the profits of foreign companies from the depression of domestic consumption through a process of sustained high inflation (greater than 100% per year). This in turn leads to escaping capital and generating an endless negative cycle of looting and insufficient currency. This is how the acceleration of neocolonialism in Argentina is expressed, at least, from 2016 to the present day.
In this sense, the permanent search for governance agreements by the Argentine political leadership towards the United States, IMF, and the subordination to each condition imposed, throw overboard the historic opportunity that the new geopolitical scenario of multipolarity represents for Argentina. The opening of new markets and global power players, the decline of the dollar and the natural characteristic of having the necessary raw materials for the production of products with increasing value worldwide, provide a framework of historical opportunity, only similar (but not the same) to the post-second world war context that Argentina knew how to take advantage of. Back then, the country reached its highest point in its history in economic and social development, by governing thought focused on national interest, prioritizing a sovereign position and destroying any bond of dependency that existed until the moment.
In conclusion, both for Argentina and for all of Our America, we can emphasize that it is urgent to start a de-dollarization process that necessarily includes breaking the existing agreements with the International Monetary Fund based on the construction of new strategic alliances within the Global South.
The sustainable and socially just development modelthat we want for all the countries of the world, will only be possible within the framework of new relationships that prioritize the sovereignty of nations and economic complementarity rather than political domination and subjection.
It is time to put an end to the main enemy that, behind different shields and flags, always is, was and will be Imperialism.