WTO Chief Pascal Lamy gets 2010 Global Economy Prize - response to Present Challenges requires a mix of economics, anthropology and international policy
WTO Director General Pascal Lamy received Sunday, 20 June, the 2010 Global Economy Prize from Germany's Kiel Institute. Also collecting awards were Liz Mohn, vice-chairwoman of the board at the Bertelsmann Foundation and Paul Krugman, Professor of Economics at Princeton University and a columnist for The New York Times and last year's Nobel Laureate.
According to Lamy, the response to the present challenges requires a mix of economics, anthropology and international policy; three different approaches, derived from separate branches of knowledge that need to be considered together.
Economics: Rather than using gross, cross border flows, which give a distorted view of competitive reality, we should opt instead for an assessment of trade in terms of value added. The actual role of countries in international trade would be more clearly revealed by an assessment of the value added content of their exports. We would also get a better overview of the labour content of trade.
Anthropology: It may appear somewhat strange to turn to this branch of the humanities for a better analysis of globalization. But I think this is the science that can help us decode a number of political attitudes towards globalization, and especially the feeling of threat to identities that has grown in its wake. And it would also throw light on what is at stake in market exchanges, if for no other purpose than to recognize that they must not lead to the stifling of other forms of exchange based on giving, on generosity, of which we see so many examples in the cultural activities.
Political Science: the science of governance of things and people, which we know must, from now on, transcend the intellectual borders of the Westphalian order and master the interdependence of national structures. This is a significant challenge, to judge by the upheavals that have marked the building of the European Union, which nonetheless remains the laboratory in which this new form of governance is taking shape.
We may be seeing the very first signs of this in the triangle that has recently emerged, bringing together the G 20 leadership, the international organizations' capacity to mobilize expertise and financial resources, and the legitimacy of the United Nations system. This triangle needs to be consolidated and each of its sides drawn if we are to lend credibility to the idea that unfettered globalization does not prevail over politics. Should the opposite sentiment prevail, that is, if economic developments were felt to overrun politics, this would give rise to reactions based on identity that would pose a threat to democracy.