From November 19 to 20, the Group of 20which actually has 19 members. The G20 was established in 1999 in response to several global economic crises. G20 members represent 85% of global GDP, 75% of international trade and 56% of the world’s population. The main objectives of the G20 include: international financial stability, climate change mitigation and sustainable development.
In the context of that meeting, the president of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Da Silvaproposed the creation of a global fund with contributions from the group’s members, whose objective would be to alleviate extreme poverty. The proposal was rejected by Argentina, thus blocking the necessary consensus for the project to take off.
The Argentine position has been criticized a lot in the media specialized in economic issues. However, none of the critics have thoroughly studied the proposal or the sources of Argentina’s rejection. If they did so, they would come to the conclusion that the proposal is nonsense, and Argentina’s rejection is not only appropriate but also establishes a limit to the disorderly development of one of the most efficient international coordination mechanisms.
Because the G20’s purpose is to prevent the contagion of economic or financial imbalances from one country to the rest of the world economy. It is also its role to harmonize fiscal and trade policies to prevent the development of tax shelters and avoid trade wars.
The fight against poverty, however, does not belong to the international dimension. Quite the contrary, it is a task of strict domestic order that can be facilitated or hindered by the action of other countries but never promoted by them. Because deep down The fight against poverty is a fight for the freedom of each individual. Poverty goes hand in hand with servitude, whether economic, institutional or cultural. Because when a human being is free – unless he is a psychopath, which there are – his mission in life is to achieve personal well-being and that of his family.
And in that search for well-being, he raises the living conditions of those around him. Obviously, in addition to being free, you need to be educated and healthy. But beyond these demands for services, free human beings create well-being. Hence, the most significant thing is the effort made by a society as a whole to guarantee the freedom of its members and the education and health of all.
The creation of an international fund to combat poverty therefore does not make the slightest sense and what would be important would be for the G20 to establish a catalog of public policies under which freedom flourishes and consequently the creation of wealth, which is the most effective formula to eradicate poverty. Creating this fund would not only distort the mission of the G20 but would lead it to suffer the Peter principle. This would emulate the degenerative path of the United Nations, an organization created to prevent conflicts, aggregate interests and ensure peace. But the number of tasks imposed on the United Nations that have no relation to its mission has led the organization to a rapid degenerative process.
Argentina’s “no” to Lula’s proposal is the beginning of the reversal of the process of weakening by functional embolism of the G20.
