Just a reshuffle among the “locals” in the Fund won’t do it

Sir, you and others seem to opine, June 8, something like if only the composition at the board of the International Monetary Fund better reflected economic size then for instance, like magic, China would speedily devaluate and all the current global imbalances disappear. It might not be as easy as that and by the way why would GDP and share of market trade more important than market capitalizations for assigning votes at the IMF and also, if we at it, why should we not go for a full democratic reform and use populations as the basis?

Much of the problem in these days of globalization lies in that it is mostly the “local” perspectives that are represented, making in fact the globe at large the most underrepresented constituency. In this respect, instead of just reshuffling the deck of card among the locals, more could perhaps be gained if some of the current chairs at the IMF Board were to be occupied by independent Executive Directors, who are there to think and represent exclusively the global perspective and interests, with the horizon of our grandchildren.


That the Fund’s professional staff could somehow act in the name of the world, well that is nice, and we all hope they do, but “Mother Earth” could still benefit from some additional support at the board level, and besides there is always the need of making sure that we don’t fall into the hand of even smaller and more parochial interests, as has indeed happened with many corporations that have de-facto been taken over by their management teams.

Sent to FT June 8, 2006