The G20 (i.e. Group of Twenty Nations) collectively control 85% of the world's GDP and 80% of the world's trade. Collectively they also create 99.8% of the world's waste, pollution, and chaos. As a group however, when they meet today and tomorrow in Toronto, they are generally working to figure out how to maintain their collective economic hegemony. Under the guise of a debate between "austerity" (this word in quotes because the median citizen of the globe would hold a far different definition of the term austere) and "stimulus", they collectively avoid any conversation about the responsibility that comes along with privilege. The agenda is one that frames economics as the science of understanding financial markets and not the politics of accumulation and alienation that have configured so much power and wealth in the hands of so few and at the expense of so many. Even in these democratic nations many many people are denied access to this accumulated wealth. So the protests at the event are warranted, and I wish the organizers and activist luck in this regard. Because under the pretense of security the organizers of this event are doing everything they can to eliminate civil disobedience and the democratic imperative. The long-term goal, however, requires us to create an agenda that redefines economy to include the science of the impacts of capital accumulation on the lives of real people! Here are a few items that might be included in a more authentic G20 Summit:
1. The concentration of global poverty in black and brown and female bodies
2. The concentration of global poverty in Africa and Asia
3. The increasing gap between rich and poor in the G20 nations
4. The impact of corporate hegemony on the environment
5. The economics of war
6. Educational attainment and economic power
7. Service
Not that I don't care about the Dow Jones, but I believe there are other indices of economic health that are far less abstract and far more essential to our global recovery.
