MWF: What in the world is going on?
It was my first experience of the Melbourne Writers Festival and it wasn’t at all what I expected it to be. I imagined small talks similar to the emerging writer’s festival – how wrong was I? There were so many people, writers signing books, staff husking off writers while they were bombarded with fans. I’ll be attending quite a few sessions over the next fortnight and posting my reflections on each session and the key points I’ve come away with.
What in the world is going on?
Robin Niblett, director of the UK’s prestigious Chatham House, Professor Stephen King from Monash University and The Age’s Daniel Flitton talked about the new administration in the US government and the global financial crisis.
All three speakers supported the capitalist system and the talk was more about how to fix this system rather than considering alternatives which seems strange to me since this is the system that caused the problem in the first place.
There was consensus that the world was better off with Obama in the White House however there was division about how the financial crisis can be fixed. Dr Niblett said the entire world has been piggy-backing on the US’s back and this needs to stop because we can’t go back to the way things were before – the world can’t rely on middle-class America. However, Professor King rebutted this by saying that the world needs a leader and the US still has a key role to play – China can’t lead because it’s still trying to find its democratic feet; and the EU are squabbling about political differences.
Free markets and globalisation were discussed and all three speakers agreed that these principles will not change and the world cannot exist without them. Professor King said it was the relaxing of the rules surrounding free markets that led to the financial crisis. Personally I think free markets cause this reliance on the US and take away from a country focusing on generating their own growth.
Mr Flitton emphasised the importance of global institutions like the United Nations being under-funded and it is institutions like these that can help solve world-wide problems like global warming and the financial crisis. He said that focusing on what we do in our borders is senseless – we need global solutions. Apparently nationalism seems to be getting in the way of this and the example of the resistance by society to outsource work to countries such as India was brought up.
I’m still learning a lot about politics but I don’t have much faith in globalisation and the capitalist system and attending this talk only affirmed by beliefs. I think moving towards a “one world” model will cause nations to lose their identity and squash local production and growth.
Alec Patric said,
August 25, 2009 at 10:34 pm
You cover so much ground here Koraly. It’s hard to know what to comment on. Interesting issues.
I think what gives capitalists power is this idea that democracy and capitalism are the same. In terms of adjustments, we need to move away from corporate dominated agendas towards human values like community health and general well being. At the moment though we’ve still got a kind of dog eat dog political attitude. A jungle mentality of survival of the fittest. At the end of the day it becomes a question of how we survive on a global level with these kinds of attitudes. I think as writers we try to create a sense of shared humanity.
Look forward to reading more from you Koraly.
Best wishes.