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Alternative views of the economic crisis to evaluate
8th February 2009
While politicians, business leaders and policymakers searched for solutions at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, different debates were taking place at the “alternative” World Social Forum in Belem, Brazil.
There, a mix of some 100,000 campaigners, thinkers, and working people came to starkly different conclusions about the causes of the downturn, and how best to address it. This BBC article takes the views of 4 of the participants:
David Evan Harris, Director, Global Lives Project “The current economic model which privileges unbridled competition is not sustainable”
Walden Bello, Focus on Global South “This crisis has roots in global overproduction”
Myriam Vander Stichele, Researcher on multinationals “Calls for re-regulation require a dismantling of the architecture of international trade treaties”
Marcos Arruda, Economist “At this point the capitalist emperor has no clothes”
Their views make interesting reading; while they all broadly agree that the existing model of the global economy has to change in the light of the economic crisis, they offer very different perspectives of the root causes and the solutions – worth reading and evaluating to assess which you think would work best, and why.