'A Serious Warning That Consumers May Be Tightening Their Belts'

'A Serious Warning That Consumers May Be Tightening Their Belts'

Economist's View

Dean Baker issues a warning:

Consumer Confidence Index (the one that matters) Declines: The Conference Board's index of consumer confidence fell in March. What is noteworthy for those following the economy is that the current conditions index dropped by 3.5 points to 57.9. This component is the one that actually tracks current consumption reasonably closely...

The recent drop in the current conditions index ... should be taken as a serious warning that consumers may be tightening their belts. That would not be a surprising response to the ending of the payroll tax cut, plus some amount of layoffs and cutbacks associated with the sequester.

This is just one report among many, but it does suggest that the recovery optimists singing about having finally turned the corner may be wrong.

[For evidence pointing in the other direction, see Tim Duy's The Recovery is Real.]

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Ten Years of Performance Measurement

Ten Years of Performance Measurement

SSIR Opinion & Analysis

By Matthew Forti

This is part of a series of reflective posts by regular Stanford Social Innovation Review bloggers in honor of SSIR's 10th anniversary.

In my December 2012 entry recapping the year in performance measurement, I shared two studies that suggest nonprofits and funders continue to struggle with the kind of measurement that drives continuous improvement. But viewed over a longer time period, I'd argue that the social sector has made some pretty impressive gains in this area.

So in honor of SSIR's anniversary, let's raise a glass to celebrate five improvements in performance measurement during the last 10 years:

1. From overhead to outcomes. Prevailing wisdom used to be that the best way to judge the efficiency of nonprofits was by looking at the proportion of their budgets that they spent on overhead. Today, websites such as GiveWell and Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy are rating nonprofits on the quality of their outcomes. Even Charity Navigator has dramatically changed course—"results reporting" is now a pillar of its rating system.

2. From ideology to evidence, particularly in global development. In the early 2000s, fierce ideological debates about how to bring developing countries out of poverty were the norm. Then a new breed of economists at the Poverty Action Lab and its sister networks proposed letting the evidence decide. Though the meteoric growth in the use of randomized control trials is controversial, it has helped the largest global development funders make more decisions based on evidence about what works—a shift we are also starting to see in some domains, such as education, in the United States.

3. From isolated to shared measurement. The past decade has seen renewed interest in partnership and collaboration across agencies and sectors to achieve common goals. Especially exciting is that many of these local collaborations, as well as national networks, are now setting common indicators, reporting through a common data system, and analyzing and learning from data together.

4. From straightforward to complex interventions. Innovation in measurement used to focus mainly on direct-service interventions with fairly linear logic models (for example, how to rigorously measure outcomes of a summer literacy program for children). But lately there has been an explosion of innovative approaches (such as developmental evaluation, outcome mapping, and policymaker ratings) for measuring what's happening in more dynamic environments, such as advocacy work, systems change, or neighborhood revitalization. These and other approaches are allowing organizations and initiatives with complex interventions to learn more from their measurement, undergirded by more sophisticated theories of change.

5. From external evaluation to performance management. In the past, as described by the 2006 SSIR article "Drowning in Data," social sector measurement was dominated by funder requests for endless lists of metrics or proof of program impact from external evaluations. While many nonprofits will tell you these requests haven't necessarily slowed, there has been a more concerted effort by evaluation firms and other measurement providers to develop techniques and tools that support performance management. For example: the adaptation of the balanced scorecard to the nonprofit sector, the proliferation of performance management data systems tailored to nonprofits, and the launch of the PerformWell website.

And now for you "glass half empty" types, five areas where we need to make much more progress. We need:

1. Greater focus on long-term outcomes. Nonprofits still get by with measuring only what's easiest to measure: short-term outcomes such as school attendance or job placement rates. But if nonprofits want to change lives, they (and their funders) should also care about whether their programs are helping people achieve more meaningful goals, such as completing college or making sustained economic gains. If more nonprofits asked the question of whether the people they serve actually end up in a better situation over the long haul, there would perhaps be a greater focus on holistic interventions or collaborations that create solid pathways to those more meaningful outcomes.

2. Fewer organizations getting big on the basis of limited evidence. A recent study by Veris Consulting found that only 39 percent of nonprofits that are scaling their programs have evaluated the impact of their work in any way; less than a fifth had a third-party outcome or impact evaluation. While having multiple sites can help an organization test and improve its programs, more extensive growth should require rigorous evaluation.

3. Greater recognition of organizational and contextual factors that drive strong performance. In the rare instances when models are proven highly effective, funders understandably get excited about scaling those models. But most evaluation studies devote little, if any, attention to underlying organizational factors (such as culture and leader characteristics) and contextual factors (such as regulatory climate and the presence of high-capacity partners) that play a role in success. In their absence, organizations or funders often require that replicators follow the original model with full fidelity; yet this precludes important adaptations and improvements that could increase the odds of success.

4. A bigger role for an organization's constituents in performance measurement. Nonprofits have a hard enough time implementing a measurement system that works for senior leaders and program staff; they rarely tackle the question of how measurement can work for the individuals, families, and communities they seek to benefit. But nonprofits often do a real disservice to these constituents—and their own success—when they fail to involve their constituents in reflecting on results, setting goals, and deciding how best to achieve those goals.

5. As much attention given to "performance audits" as financial audits. Though exact requirements vary by state, most nonprofits with revenues greater than $500,000 are required to obtain an annual independent financial audit. Yet only a handful ever get an outside assessment of their self-reported program performance data. Over time, the social sector would benefit from independent social impact analysts to help clarify for funders and nonprofits the extent to which program data is accurate and representative.
As you reflect on the past decade, what other gains or gaps in social sector measurement would you put on the list?

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A long way to go

A long way to go

Baobab

IT HAS been a happier place since Joyce Banda took over as Malawi's president after the sudden death of Bingu wa Mutharika  almost a year ago. Ms Banda, previously the vice-president, has made sure she did not emulate her increasingly dictatorial predecessor, who reminded Malawians of the era before democracy arrived in 1994. She has cut down on presidential limousines and jets and has mended relations with aid-giving foreign governments such as Britain's, whose ambassador was kicked out after a leaked cable revealed a dim view of Mr Mutharika. "We can assemble without the police interfering and we can criticise the government again," says Dan Nyirenda, a journalist.

The government is functioning better. Civil society is robust, says John Makina, who heads Oxfam Malawi. "Corruption is mainly people asking for a Fanta", he says: mostly small-scale by regional standards. Costly subsidies for fertiliser have kept farmers happy and most Malawian stomachs full enough. On the whole, Ms Banda still wins plaudits.

Some, however, say she is squeezing space in the media for opposition views. Others worry that food handouts known as "Banda maize" (since the president's name is marked on them) are unaffordable: they go to 80% of the population. Most worrying were the arrests earlier in March of several former and current ministers, accused of plotting to stop Ms Banda taking power on Mr Mutharika's death. They include the head of the rival Democratic Progressive party who is due to run against the president in elections in May 2014.

Such criticisms may get sharper because Malawi, which remains one of the poorest countries in the world, is in the economic doldrums. On the advice of international institutions, the government devalued Malawi's currency a month after Ms Banda became president and let it float. Its value nearly halved and sent inflation racing. Foreign currency is running out. Importers of fuel are unable to get credit, causing shortages. To make things worse, exports of tobacco, the main crop, are bringing in less cash.

The government still relies overwhelmingly on foreign donors and farming. "To get money, we will plant a number of crops that will grow in six months and are in demand on the global market," says Goodall Gondwe, the minister for economic planning and development—speaking before his arrest. It is a risky policy, since Malawi relies for irrigation on rain, which is not always forthcoming.

With the credit crunch bearing down, longer-term development is still sluggish. Half of Malawians live on less than $1 a day. More than a tenth of the population are said to have HIV/AIDS, though the figure used to be higher. Land is scarce for the subsistence farmers who still make up most of Malawi's 16m people. Education is not yet compulsory and is free only at primary level. Ms Banda has a long way to go.

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Doing Food Security Differently – Theme 3: Create exit points

Doing Food Security Differently – Theme 3: Create exit points

Open The Echo Chamber

In the world of food security and agricultural development there is a tendency to see market integration as a panacea for problems of hunger (see Theme 2, point 4). There is ample evidence that market integration creates opportunities for farmers by connecting them to the vast sums of money at play in the global food markets. But there is equally ample evidence pointing to the fact that markets are never just a solution – negotiating global markets from the position of a small producer presents significant challenges such as the management of commodity price instability (without meaningful market leverage).  The academic side, and much of the implementation side, of the food security world already recognizes this issue, driven by (repeated) studies/experiences of food insecurity and famine showing that markets are nearly always the most important driver of this stress on the global poor. Planning for the benefits of market integration without serious thought about how to manage the potential downsides of markets is a recipe for disaster.

For example, simplifying one's farm to focus on only a few key crops for which there is "comparative advantage", and then using the proceeds to buy food, clothing, shelter and other necessities, works great when the market for those crops is strong. But what happens when the food you need to buy becomes more dear than the crops you are growing, for example through food price spikes or a shift in markets that leave one's farm worth only a fraction of what is needed to feed and clothe one's family? In the world's poorest countries, where most food security and agricultural development work takes place, there is little capacity to provide safety nets to vulnerable citizens that might address such outcomes.

This is not a call for the provision of these safety nets (microinsurance is very interesting, but a long way from implementation).  While useful and, in some contexts, critical, they are, in the end, band-aids for a larger conceptual problem – the framing of market engagement as a panacea for the problems of agricultural development and food security.  Often, such programs also presume a lack of existing safety nets at the community or household level – a sort of "we can't make things worse" mentality that marks much development thought. However, farmers in these countries have long operated without a state-level safety net. They hedge against all kinds of uncertainties, from the weather to markets.  For example, one form of hedging I have seen in my own work is an emphasis on growing a mix of crops that can be sold or eaten, depending on market and weather conditions.  If, in coastal Ghana, you are growing maize and cassava as your principal crops, you can sell both in years where the market is good, and you can eat both in years where the market turns on you. I have referred to opting out of markets as temporary deglobalization, where people opt in and out of markets as they gauge their risks and opportunities.

Forcing farmers away from this model, toward one that focuses on enhancing the economic efficiency of agricultural production by reducing the focus of a country and its farmers to a few crops that are their "comparative advantage", and which they should sell to purchase the rest of their dietary needs, removes the option of turning away from markets and eating the crops in conditions of years where the markets are not favorable.  This is even more true when some of that newly reduced crop mix only takes value from sale on global markets (i.e. cocoa) and/or which cannot be eaten (i.e. cotton). In short, such restructuring in the name of economic efficiency makes people dependent on the political structures of the state that govern the markets in which they participate.  Most of our work takes place in the Global South, where the state rarely has the capacity to step in and help in times of crisis.  It is pretty easy to do the math here: done wrong, food security programs principally framed around ideas of economic efficiency can enhance state capacity to extract value from farmers without a comparable improvement in the delivery of services or safety nets.  This is an acceptable outcome if you are trying to compel people to submit to the state and the markets the state regulates, which is one way to boost measurable GDP and state revenue. However, it is really bad if you are actually trying to improve people's food security.

The key points and principals here:

1)   Are you addressing food insecurity or strengthening the state's capacity to raise revenue and measure economic activity? These are not the same thing – generally, they are at odds with one another, as making agricultural practice easier to see and measure only serves to improve the capacity to extract revenues from farmers, without any guarantee of improved services proceeding from those revenues.

2)   Economic efficiency is a desirable characteristic of agricultural livelihoods, but in the absence of safety nets cannot be the organizing principal of food security interventions. All else being equal, it is better when farmers use their scarce resources as efficiently as possible. However, the measurement of efficiency must take place within an assessment of the various risks currently managed through "inefficiencies" – as many such inefficiencies are in fact parts of robust, community- and household-level safety nets.

3)   Food security programming should be able to identify the difference between an inefficiency and a critical part of a community- or household-level safety net.  Regardless of the consequences for economic efficiency, programs and projects should not destabilize these until such time as new, reliable safety nets exist to take their place.

4)   Opting out is OK. Farmers should be allowed to structure their farms such that they can opt out of markets if things turn bad, even if this limits their total incomes in "good"/optimal years. This should not be assessed in terms of the average outcome, when best and worst cases are averaged.  Your best case is some more money. Your worst case is severe deprivation and death. These are not equal. Averting the latter is more important than achieving the former.

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Doing Food Security Differently – Theme 2: Embrace complexity

Doing Food Security Differently – Theme 2: Embrace complexity

Open The Echo Chamber

If food insecurity is not about global food shortages, what is it?  Following the a vast body of literature and experience addressing food insecurity, it is the outcome of a complex interplay between:

• locally-accessible food production
• local livelihoods options that might provide sufficient, reliable income or sources of food
• local social relations (which mobilize and create social divisions by gender, class, age, etc.) which shape access to both livelihoods opportunities and available food within communities and even households
• structures of governance and markets in which that production takes place
• global markets for food and other commodities that can impinge on local pricing.

Changes in the natural environment play into this mix in that they generally impinge upon locally-accessible production and on global markets. The experience of the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS-NET) provides evidence to this effect.  FEWS-NET builds its forecasts through a consideration of all of these factors, and as it has gained resolution on things like local livelihoods activities and market pricing and functions, its predictive resolution has increased.

Despite decades of literature and body of experience to the contrary, it seems that the policy world, and indeed much development implementation, continues to view issues of hunger as the relatively straightforward outcome of production shortfalls that can be addressed through equally straightforward technical fixes ranging from changed farming techniques to new agricultural technologies such as GMOs.  This view is frustrating, given its persistence in the face of roughly five decades of project failures and ephemeral results that evaporated at the end of "successful" projects. More nuanced work has started to think about issues of production in concert with the distribution function of markets.  However, the bulk of policy and implementation along these lines couples the simplistic "technical fix" mentality of earlier work on food security with a sort of naïve market triumphalism that tends to focus on the possible benefits of market engagement with little mention or reasonable understanding of likely problematic outcomes.  Put another way, most of this thinking can be reduced to:

increased agricultural production = increased economic productivity = increased food security and decreased poverty

The problem with this equation is that the connection between agricultural productivity and economic growth is pretty variable/shaky in most places, and the connection between economic growth and any specific development outcome is shaky/nonexistent pretty much everywhere unless there has been careful work done to make sure that new income is mobilized in a specific manner that addresses the challenge at hand.  Most of the time, the food security via economic growth crowd has not done this last bit of legwork. In short, the mantra of "better technology and more markets" as currently manifest in policy circles is unlikely to advance the cause of food security and address global hunger any more effectively than prior interventions based on a version of the same mantra.

These issues present us with several key points about the problem we are trying to solve that should shape a general approach to food insecurity:

1)   Because food insecurity is the outcome of the complex interplay of many factors, sectoral approaches are doomed to failure.  At best, they will address a necessary but insufficient cause of the particular food insecurity issue at hand.  However, in leaving other key causes unaddressed, these partial solutions nearly always succumb to problems in the unaddressed causes.

2)   Production-led solutions will rarely, if ever, address enough significant causes of food insecurity to succeed.  Simply put, while production is a necessary part of understanding food insecurity, it is insufficient for explaining the causes of particular food insecurity situations, or identifying appropriate solutions for those situations.

3)   Increased production is not guaranteed to lead to economic growth. The crops at hand, who consumes them, the infrastructure for their transport, and national/global market conditions all shape this particular outcome, which can shift from season to season.

4)   Economic growth does not solve things magically. Even if you can generate economic growth through increased agricultural production, this does not mean you will be addressing food insecurity. Programs must think carefully about where the proceeds from this new economic growth will go in the economy and society at hand, and if/how those pathways will result in greater opportunity for the food insecurity.

5)   Embrace the fact complexity takes different forms in different places. In some places, markets will be a major cause of insecurity. In other places, environmental degradation might play this role. In still other places, failed governance will be the biggest issue driving food outcomes.  In nearly all cases, though, all three of these factors will be present, and accompanied by others.  Further, the form this insecurity takes will be highly variable within countries, provinces, districts, communities and even households, depending on the roles people play and the places in which they play them.  There is no good template in which to fit a particular case of food insecurity, just a lot of causal factors that require extensive teasing out if one hopes to explain food outcomes and therefore address the problem.

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Doing Food Security Differently – Theme 1: Get over production

Doing Food Security Differently – Theme 1: Get over production

Open The Echo Chamber

There is no global crisis of food production.  There is no neo-Malthusian reality that we are just now crashing into.  Every year, the Earth produces roughly twice the calories needed to feed every single human being.  This is why food insecurity and famine are such horrible tragedies, and indeed stains on humanity.  There is no unavoidable global shortage that creates famine and hunger.

Nor, in fact, are we likely to be looking at a global food shortage any time soon.  There is no doubt that climate change will present challenges to our food system.  The combination of changing temperatures and precipitation regimes will challenge existing crops in many parts of the world, and benefit the crops in other parts of the world.  Further, the global markets for food have created substantially tighter interconnections between places than ever before, and there is less excess marketable supply than ever before.  Note that there is less excess marketable supply – this is the amount of food we produce that actually reaches market, not the total amount of food grown and raised each year.  As I will discuss later (point 4: The Future is Already Being Fed), these trends are not as terrifying as some might paint them.  The simple point here is that these trends are manageable if we can get over the idea of food security as a question of production.

The idea of scarcity is perhaps the biggest challenge we face in addressing the world's food needs.  As long as food security policy and programs remain focused on solving scarcity, food security will remain focused on technical fixes for hunger: greater technology, greater inputs, greater efficiency.  This narrative of scarcity has trumped any reasonable effort to measure actual levels of production in the world today, the return on greater technological inputs versus solving the causes of waste in existing systems, and even served as a useful foil through which to obscure the deepening unsustainability of the very agricultural systems that are often treated as a model, those here in the United States and Europe.

Simply put, it is cheaper and easier to enhance agricultural extension to improve local food storage techniques, build and maintain good roads, and improve electrical grids and other parts of the cold chain that preserves produce from farm to market than it is to completely reengineer an agricultural ecology.  It makes far more sense to make basic infrastructural investments than it does to tether ever more farmers to inputs that require finite fossil fuel and mineral resources.  It makes more sense to better train farmers in storing what they already produce in a manner that preserves more of the harvest than it does to invest billions in the modification of crops, especially when the bulk of genetic modification in agriculture these days is defensive – that is, guarding against future yield loss, not enhancing yields in the present.

This is not to say that there is no place for agricultural research or technology in achieving food security.  There are places in the world where the state cannot provide services, or maintain the basic order necessary for functional markets, that would enable the movement of food are reasonable prices, and where the local environmental conditions are such that new and innovative technologies will be required to make them productive.  Here, new agricultural technologies might have a place.  But these places are few and far between, and so we should put the push for ever-more agricultural technology into its place as but one of many possible solutions for food insecurity.  When a problem has many causes, it requires many solutions.  But this requires understanding that the problem has many causes.

This points to several key points/principals:

1)   When confronted with an instance of food insecurity, program/project/policy folks must suspend all assumptions about food supply until they can be validated by empirical evidence.

2)   Any initial arguments that define the causes of a given situation as scarcity should be assessed in terms of understanding why this has come to be the explanation.  Since scarcity is rarely the actual cause of food insecurity, explanations that hinge on scarcity alone are deeply suspect and should be critically evaluated before they are used to shape responses. For example, are there local misperceptions of markets at play, or are there those with vested interests in particular solutions trying to drive the response?

3)   Any assessment of the food security of a population should account not only for the amount of food they can access and are entitled to, but also the total food produced both by that population and within that population's market-shed.  This allows for a greater understanding of the causes of food insecurity, such as waste caused by insufficient infrastructural quality or inappropriate on-farm practices, or the failure of the state to provide the necessary structures for functional markets.  There is little point to bringing new genetically-modified crops to populations whose real problem is not production, but an inability to get their existing harvest to market.

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Will CIDA’s demise hurt the world’s poor?

Will CIDA's demise hurt the world's poor?

Owen abroad

There is an article by me and Lucas Robinson in the Globe and Mail today:

 The risk is that development becomes a secondary goal in a department with bigger fish to fry. The opportunity is that by putting development at the heart of a more powerful department with a broader remit for foreign and trade policy, Canada will now be able to promote development-friendly policies across the wide range of issues which most affect poor countries. It is not CIDA but Canada as a nation that needs to do more.

And I'm quoted in the Toronto Star:

"It makes no sense, giving aid to the same countries you hit with high tariffs," says Owen Barder, a London-based official with the Centre for Global Development, a think tank that focuses on international aid issues.

It's a disconnect, Barder said, that could be addressed and resolved with foreign aid officials positioned closer to the centre of power in Ottawa.

 

Archived copies: 

Let's not forget that development is more than just CIDA – The Globe and Mail
CIDA merger with Foreign Affairs may help the poor - interview in Toronto Star

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Top Economists, Financial Experts and Bankers Say We Must Break Up the Giant Banks

Top Economists, Financial Experts and Bankers Say We Must Break Up the Giant Banks

The Big Picture

Bernanke: "Too Big To Fail Was A Major Source of The Crisis, and We Will Not Have Successfully Responded To The Crisis If We Do Not Address That Successfully"

 

Current Fed chairman Ben Bernanke said yesterday:

"Too Big To Fail is not solved and gone," he said during a press conference. "It's still here."

***

"I agree … 100 percent that it's a real problem," he said.

***

"Too Big To Fail was a major source of the crisis," he added a little later, "and we will not have successfully responded to the crisis if we do not address that successfully."

Bernanke joins the following top economists and financial experts who believe that the economy cannot recover unless the big, insolvent banks are broken up in an orderly fashion:

• Nobel prize-winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz

• Nobel prize-winning economist, Ed Prescott

• Nobel prize-winning economist, Paul Krugman

• Former chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan

• Former chairman of the Federal Reserve, Paul Volcker

• Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich

• Current Vice Chair and director of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation – and former 20-year President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City – Thomas Hoenig (and see this)

• Chief Stability Officer at the Bank of England, Andrew Haldane (and see this and this)

• Former Federal Reserve Bank of New York economist and Salomon Brothers vice chairman, Henry Kaufman

• Dean and professor of finance and economics at Columbia Business School, and chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush, R. Glenn Hubbard

• Former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund, Simon Johnson (and see this)

• President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Richard Fisher (and see this)

• President of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Thomas Bullard

• Deputy Treasury Secretary, Neal S. Wolin

• The Congressional panel overseeing the bailout (and see this)

• The former head of the FDIC, Sheila Bair

• The head of the Bank of England, Mervyn King

• The Bank of International Settlements (the "Central Banks' Central Bank")

• The International Monetary Fund

• The leading monetary economist and co-author with Milton Friedman of the leading treatise on the Great Depression, Anna Schwartz

• Economics professor and senior regulator during the S & L crisis, William K. Black

• Leading British economist, John Kay

• Economics professor, Nouriel Roubini

• Economist, Marc Faber

• Professor of entrepreneurship and finance at the Chicago Booth School of Business, Luigi Zingales

• Economics professor, Thomas F. Cooley

• Economist Dean Baker

• Economist Arnold Kling

• Chairman of the Commons Treasury, John McFall

• The Director of Research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Harvey Rosenblum

• Director, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn, and Professor of Economics, University of Bonn, Martin Hellwig

And the head of the New York Federal Reserve Bank – and former Goldman Sachs chief economist – William Dudley says that we should not tolerate a financial system in which certain financial institutions are deemed to be too big to fail.

Federal Reserve Board governor Daniel Tarullo also backs a cap on the size of banks, and Former Treasury secretary under Reagan and George H.W. Bush, Nicolas Brady, says that we need to put a cap on leverage.

Top Bankers Call for Big Banks to Be Broken Up

While you might assume that bankers themselves don't want the giant banks to be broken up, many are in fact calling for a break up, including:

• Former Citi CEO Sandy Weill

• Former Citi CEO John Reed

• Former Citi chairman Richard Parsons

• Former Merrill Lynch chairman and CEO David Komansky

• Former Morgan Stanley CEO Philip Purcell

• Former managing director of Goldman Sachs – and head of the international analytics group at Bear Stearns in London- Nomi Prins

• Numerous other bankers within the mega-banks (see this, for example)

• Founder and chairman of Signature Bank, Scott Shay

• Former Natwest and Schroders investment banker, Philip Augar

• The President of the Independent Community Bankers of America, Camden Fine

Indeed, a bipartisan consensus is forming regarding the need to break up the big banks. Click here for background on why so many top bankers, economists, financial experts and politicians say that the big banks should be broken up.

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De toverwoorden progressief en conservatief

De toverwoorden progressief en conservatief

Vice Versa

Minister Ploumen bestempelt haar criticasters als ouderwets. Het is volgens publicist en nestor van de derde wereldbeweging Hans Beerends niet de eerste keer dat juist mensen die een neoliberale politiek voeren zichzelf tooien met woorden als progressief en vooruitstrevend en criticasters die een politiek willen die meer gericht is op menswaardigheid wegzetten als ouderwets of traditioneel. Een historisch overzicht van het gebruik van de begrippen progressief en conservatief in het debat.

In het huidige, in grote mate door de VVD gedicteerde ontwikkelingsbeleid, krijgt het Nederlands bedrijfsleven meer dan ooit een voorkeursbehandeling. Minister Ploumen van Buitenlandse Handel en Ontwikkelingssamenwerking, die daarmee naar ik aanneem enigszins knarsetandend akkoord is gegaan, tracht dit nieuwe beleid te verkopen als progressief.

De tegenstanders van dit Nederlandse handelsbeleid krijgen het stempel conservatief opgeplakt. Daarbij wordt de minister, wellicht vanuit een oude loyaliteit, gesteund door een woordvoerder van haar vroegere werkgever Cordaid.

Overigens is er niets op tegen als hulp gebruikt wordt voor het ondersteunen van lokale bedrijven in ontwikkelingslanden. In de Volkskrant van 13 maart staat onder de kop 'ontwikkelingswerker wordt zakenman' beschreven op elke wijze ICCO lokale bedrijven in ontwikkelingslanden steunt. Prima maar wat is daar nieuw aan? Zolang ontwikkelingssamenwerking bestaat is er samengewerkt met plaatselijke bedrijven en heeft de 'derde wereldbeweging' gepleit voor autonome economische ontwikkeling in arme landen.  Zelfs als een Nederlands bedrijf zich in een ontwikkelingsland vestigt, daar geen lokaal bedrijf van de markt dringt, redelijk betaalde werkgelegenheid schept en de winst in het betreffende land investeert, is er niets verkeerds aan.

Het stempel progressief

Waar de kritiek zich nu en in het verleden op richt is het gebruiken van hulp ter ondersteuning van een export en investeringsbeleid wat niet ten goede komt aan de armen. Nu heeft het bedrijfsleven altijd willen profiteren van hulpgelden: het hulpbudget is begin jaren zestig zelfs ingesteld op verzoek van het Nederlandse bedrijfsleven. Alleen was men toen zo eerlijk aan te geven dat men deze hulp nodig had ter financiering van exporten naar landen met weinig koopkracht.

Op dit ogenblik echter krijgt dit nieuwe hulp/export/investeringsbeleid het stempel progressief en degenen die hulp vooral en liefs uitsluitend willen geven ten behoeve van de emancipatie van de armen, krijgen het stempel conservatief.

Hierbij kom ik op de vraag waarom voorstanders van meer dominantie van het bedrijfsleven zo graag het woord progressief gebruiken en waarom dit woord allang de lading niet meer dekt.

Verschil in taalgebruik

In de eerste plaats wil ik een verschil maken tussen het gebruik van het woord progressief in algemene zin en het gebruik in het politieke spraakgebruik.

In algemene zin staat het woord progressief voor een proces in een bepaalde negatieve of positieve richting. Een voortschrijdend niet te stoppen ziekteproces heet een ziekte met een progressief verloop. Een belasting die hoger wordt naarmate men meer verdient heet een progressief belastingstelsel. Objectieve waarneming dus van een voortschrijdend proces.

Als men het woord echter in politieke zin gebruikt, dan betekent progressief vooruitstrevend en dan kan je de vraag stellen: vooruitstrevend waar naartoe?

In theorie kan je over het punt waar je naartoe streeft van alles bedenken, maar in de praktijk is er in grote lijnen altijd overeenstemming geweest over wat men met vooruit bedoelt en waar men naar streeft. In politieke zin is met progressief altijd gedoeld op de strijd voor meer menswaardigheid, juridische gelijkheid, meer rechtvaardigheid, meer ontplooiingsmogelijkheden, meer verdraagzaamheid en meer onderling respect.

De 19^e eeuw

In de 19^e eeuw werden liberalen progressief genoemd, want zij streefden naar gelijke rechten en meer menswaardigheid tegenover de conservatieve standenmaatschappij. Als liberalen eind 19^e eeuw de juridische gelijkheid echter als hun eindpunt gaan ervaren, en zich keren tegen het pleidooi van meer economische gelijkheid door de opkomende vakbonden en sociaaldemocratische partijen, wordt de strijd van laatstgenoemde bewegingen progressief genoemd en dat van de liberalen conservatief.

De liberalen weigerden echter het stempel conservatief en bleven zichzelf als progressief zien, met name tegenover de confessionelen. De socialisten noemden de liberalen overigens ook niet altijd conservatief. Men koos meer voor het begrip reactionair. Reactionair, het woord zegt het al, benoemt een groep die reageert tegen de snelheid van de voortschrijdende maatschappelijke ontwikkeling naar meer gelijke rechten, meer mensenrechten, meer respect voor menselijke waardigheid en meer rechtvaardigheid.

Rijnlandkapitalisme versus neoliberalisme

In feite hebben de liberalen bovengenoemde ontwikkeling tot de jaren tachtig van de vorige eeuw wel vertraagd, maar nooit per se willen tegenhouden. Het liberale denken van de 19^e eeuw over zo weinig mogelijk overheidsbemoeienis en het liberale denken van na de Tweede Wereldoorlog verschilt hemelsbreed.

Ook de liberalen kozen, weliswaar traag en soms tegenstribbelend, voor het zogeheten Rijnlandkapitalisme dat ook wel verzorgingsstaatkapitalisme genoemd werd. Daar kwam pas verandering in na de opkomst van het neoliberale denken onder president Reagan van de VS en de publicaties van de econoom Milton Friedman. In het neoliberalisme wil men in feite weer terug naar de situatie van het begin van de 20^e eeuw: weinig of geen staatsbemoeienis. De ontwikkeling van de vrije markt mag op geen enkele wijze belemmerd worden en dus een snelle afbraak van de verzorgingsstaat. Zo Neo is dat liberalisme dus niet, het is feite een teruggang naar Af.

De strijd om woorden

En hier gekomen begint de strijd om woorden. Wie is er progressief en wie conservatief? Als je progressief vertaalt als vooruitstrevend en het punt waarnaar gestreefd wordt ziet als de maatschappelijke ontwikkeling die hierboven beschreven is, dan is het huidige neoliberale standpunt alles behalve progressief. Liberalen willen zichzelf echter graag tooien met het woord progressief, dus veranderen zij de inhoud van het woord.

De afbraak van de verzorgingsstaat en de bevordering van de economische dominantie van banken en het (inter) nationale bedrijfsleven wordt nu opgesierd met fris klinkende woorden als 'de vernieuwde terugtredende overheid', 'meer flexibiliteit, 'de bevrijding van het individu van overheidsbemoeienis', 'de redelijkheid van markconforme beloning', 'de vrijheid en de zelfredzaamheid van de ZZP'er', 'het vergemakkelijken van zo goedkoop mogelijk produceren. ' Dit alles krijgt dan de naam progressief.

Traditie en hervorming krijgen andere betekenis

Ook het woord hervorming en het woord traditioneel krijgen nu een andere betekenis. Het woord hervorming, ooit gebruikt als een woord wat aangaf dat men de maatschappij wilde hervormen in de maatschappelijke ontwikkeling zoals hierboven geschetst, werd nu gebruikt om een teruggang te benoemen. Femke Halsema wilde GroenLinks naar rechts laten opschuiven, onder andere door het voornemen om enkele verzorgingswetten terug te draaien. Deze teruggang werd door haar gebracht als een hervorming in positieve zin.

Ook het woord traditie is een prachtig etiket om uit te delen aan groepen waar je het niet mee eens bent. Ik kan me herinneren dat de regionale Centra voor Ontwikkelingssamenwerking, de Cossen, in de jaren tachtig door de toenmalige NCDO gedwongen werden om een a-politiek beleid te gaan voeren. Na veel discussie ging de meerderheid van de Cossen daarmee akkoord. Vanaf dat moment gaven zij de meer politieke derde wereldbeweging de naam traditionele derde wereldbeweging.

Toen premier Wim Kok onder invloed van de neoliberale tijdgeest in de jaren negentig meeging met de zogeheten neoliberale 'derde weg' noemde hij het weggooien van sociaal – democratische uitgangspunten een 'bevrijdende ervaring.' We zullen in de komende jaren waarschijnlijk wel vaker zien dat partijen en personen die het kapitalistische Rijnlandmodel willen afbreken en daarvoor in de plaats het Angelsaksische Casinokapitalisme willen invoeren hun streven zullen verkopen met de woorden progressief, hervormend, vernieuwend en vooruitstrevend.

Voor wie is het vooruitstrevend?

Het is daarom belangrijk om je keer op keer af te vragen. Voor wie is dit vooruitstrevend? Wie profiteert van deze hervorming en wie is er de dupe van? Het is niet de eerste keer dat geprobeerd wordt de lopende positieve maatschappelijke ontwikkelingen terug te draaien. En het is ook niet de eerste keer dat dit streven mislukt en dat na een korte inzinking de lijn naar meer menswaardigheid, meer gelijkheid en meer humanitaire waarden zich herstelt.

Het zou in dit kader goed zijn als minister Ploumen als voormalig mededirecteur van Cordaid, Mama Cash voormalig voorzitter van de Evert Vermeer Stichting de pleidooien die zij in die jaren hield voor een progressief humanitair ontwikkelingsbeleid in haar nieuwe functie concretiseert. Ze heeft nu de kans. In plaats van de kritiek van haar solidaire achterban van zich af te werpen zou ze deze kritiek ter harte moeten nemen en kunnen gebruiken voor het versterken van haar positie in de onderhandelingen met de huidige, in historisch opzicht, politiek verstokte liberalen.

 Hans Beerends (1931) was medeoprichter en coördinator van de wereldwinkelbeweging en voorzitter van het milieu/derde wereldsamenwerkingsverband 'Honger Hoeft Niet.' Binnenkort verschijnt van zijn hand het boek 'Tegen de draad in –een beknopte geschiedenis van de (derde) wereldbeweging.' Eerder schreef hij de boeken De Nederlandse ontwikkelingshulp in discussie (1977), Dertig jaar Nederlandse Ontwikkelingshulp (1981), De derde wereld beweging (1993), Weg met Pinochet –een kwart eeuw solidariteit met Chili (1998) en De Bewogen Beweging –een halve eeuw mondiale solidariteit (2004, samen met Marc Broere).

 

 

 

 

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