Sep 9, 2006 10:45:00 AM cite

Ervin Laszlo: It’s not a question of either, or macro-finance or micro-finance, the question of both at the right level. You cannot develop entire countries and economies and urban centers purely by micro-finance. At the same time, macro-finance is not sufficient in developed families, villages and small communities. You have to use the right kind of finance for the right purpose.

by Ervin Laszlo

Sep 9, 2006 10:45:00 AM cite

Esther Mwaura-Muiru: It is finances forwards and costs associated with the finances. I think traditionally societies did rely on better trade, and people relied on exchanging goods. And so they deal in finances to be able to develop. So, with the micro or macro, it depends on what you want to do with that money. It depends on who defines the investment, and I think only grassroots communities can decide what amount of resources they do have. And a lot of times we think externally, we must -- external development agencies -- we must put money for communities to develop, and I think this is so so wrong. There’s a lot of communities. If they were not curtailed to do the -- to use the resources they have, to design their own strategies on how to improve their own life rewards and keep their own life rewards, that they can survive. So, I feel it's not a question of micro or macro. It's actually who lives and defines where the what should go. It's who defines what is development, who defines what are the components of development, so that we can say, then we want to have 20 buildings, we have to have 20 schools, we want to have 20 water boreholes. Or do we want actually to see a community, which protects its environment and sometimes it doesn’t need the money? We want to have a community that shares its own traditional knowledge, and you don’t need the micro-finance to share your own traditional knowledge that actually protects the environment. And you don’t need actually to have a building that cost 20 million to be able to say that you need micro-finances to build it. You probably need very simple tools to be able to solve some of the problems that are existing. It's not money. Money is…

by Esther Mwaura-Muiru

Sep 9, 2006 10:45:00 AM cite

Fernando Solanas: This is a quite complicated question. The developing countries suffer from all kinds of neocolonialism; that means they suffer from being dominated by local powers which in turn are totally committed to the worldwide powers of the central societies, especially the United States. The world of today is designed to dominate, it is designed by huge superstructures of domination in order to control and dominate the economic life of the other nations. We must not forget that because of this money is controlled via the International Monetary Fund, where a fistful of countries have the power to decide and where only one country – the United States – has the power of veto; the same is true of other international authorities like the United Nations, the Security Council. All this is a farce because the gigantic aggressions and warlike genocides neither counted on an intervention nor on the Security Council and the veto of some of the few members that dominate it. Today's world is under an international judicial system or international institutions that don't reflect it. This is a consequence of the Second World War which created institutions that serve the victors of the Second World War, but this is not true for the entire planet. For example it is not true for Latin America which participated neither in the Second Word War nor in the First and which has its own history and its own development plans. The process of economic development of our countries should naturally be to democratise. The democratisation of the economies and the democratisation of the institutions of the developing countries, as is the case in Argentina, naturally requires great institutional changes, but above all it requires independence and liberation from the system of domination exercised on Argentina by the multinationals and the international banking authorities etc.

by Fernando Solanas

Sep 9, 2006 10:45:00 AM cite

Fred Matser: Well, I think that it depends, of course, on which country, but I think that as well as macro-finance, as well as micro-finance can stand together, I think macro-finance is the best to be used for infrastructural works and that kind of works that are taking a lot of investments, not only infrastructures of roads, but I think also of factories and big cities, water piping systems, electricity or utilities, those kind of things. But, for the setup for example of small companies, small production companies, trade companies, even agricultural companies to do agriculture, micro-finance can be a wonderful tool to help and develop the -- and empower people to make them sustainable in the creation -- through the creation of their own food and other needs.

by Fred Matser

Sep 9, 2006 10:45:00 AM cite

Galsan Tschinag: This distinction between micro and macro seems superficial to me. You can get macro out of micro if there is a good administration. Example: western immigrants in the Mongolian steppe. But every macro can vanish into nothing if there is corruption in stead of justice. Example: Africa.

by Galsan Tschinag

Sep 9, 2006 10:45:00 AM cite

Giora Feidman: What is development? Really what is development? To find a missile that take -- to take a bomb faster and far away? What is development? What is economic development? 28 wars in this planet in this moment I was told. This what a society accept as development? And look, by the way the medicine -- the medicine if some kind of results profit of this kind of development where-- we must try to say to make a better definition of the meaning of development.

by Giora Feidman

Sep 9, 2006 10:45:00 AM cite

Gladman Chibememe: Micro-finance could be a good starting point. I think that it's a good strategy, because it is important to start small, small is beautiful. But once if you start small, you will be able to really upscale the financial system in such a way that it caters for large-scale development. At the same time, this micro-finance should be directed towards the local level institutions that are critically involved in development at grassroots level. Those institutions that are really into action, and if this is done, then we can talk about real real development, we can talk about a world in which developing countries are progressing towards - forward, because the real people who will be getting real resources to be able to change their lives, livelihoods at the right level which is the community level where action can be taken place. So, what we are saying is action needs to be supported and it has to be supported at the appropriate level by provision of micro-finance. Start small, but upscale is more initiatives into becoming big initiatives, micro-financial resources. So, we need to upscale. We need to move from small to big. Small is beautiful, but we need to know where the small resources or the little resources should be devoted to. We need to devote the resources at the appropriate level, which is the local level, the community level, the local authority level where action is taking place, where the people much need the help, where the people are in contact with the resources, natural resources for their exploitation and their use.

by Gladman Chibememe

Sep 9, 2006 10:45:00 AM cite

Govindaswamy Hariramamurthi: How should the development of developing countries take place? Development is possible only when those who are not developed have access to capital. If it is only possible through micro-finance, I don’t think so. There has to be positive changes at the macro-level and also at the micro-level. You can’t choose between the two. If the developed world wants to remain developed, they must make it possible for those who do not have access to capital to produce more, to have more purchasing power, to buy more of meeting their needs. It requires wisdom on the part of those who are developed who look at the basic needs. Now this basic needs are often not getting addressed in the current system so naturally I think micro-finance and macro-finance both need to have their own respective roles.

by Govindaswamy Hariramamurthi

Sep 9, 2006 10:45:00 AM cite

Hans-Peter Dürr: The first thing is that we must redefine development. In a Western sense, development means to intend possibilities of the material development for all the people of this world. It is much more important to try there, where this development would lead to a further human development, where a human would reach the next level of consciousness. That means not only that we should finance them, but first and foremost that we stop deforming their own wisdom that is inside of their cultures, that we help them to take their own way and to polish it. That would give every person the possibility really to develop all the abilities he possesses, his skills, on the emotional, intellectual and physical level. And by reaching this higher level of wisdom it could be possible for all to realize that in the end there is something in all cultures that binds us, and not only that, but to see that it corresponds with the sense of life. That would be a real development. The development we know today brings us to a way of life that destroys this sense and it turns us into consumers, and we can actually no more call us homo sapiens but the “homo economicus”, i.e. a consumer who consumes what is being thrown to him – eat! And then you must be satisfied and you don’t have to think yourself.

by Hans-Peter Dürr

Sep 9, 2006 10:45:00 AM cite

Harry Wu: I think the development country have to improve their political system first. I think this is basic condition.

by Harry Wu

Sep 9, 2006 10:45:00 AM cite

Helena Norberg-Hodge: Personally, I believe we have to reexamine what we mean by development and what we mean by growth. At the moment, neither macro-financing nor micro-financing is the way to go. We need to understand certain basic structures and principles, and they have to do with the way that we are using oil and technology to modernalize and replace people, and thereby creating job scarcity and unemployment. Unemployment is a completely modern phenomenon. It never existed for many thousands of years before the advent of this modern global economy. We need to recognize that the idea behind micro-financing, which sounds good from a Western point of view, has often been one that assumes that economic growth is always beneficial. In actual fact, what micro-finance has done in many parts of the world is to bring debt to rural areas where there was no debt before. The idea of bringing debt particularly to women has been seen as a way of enabling them to be empowered, but debt is not what creates empowerment. Very often, micro-finance has meant that women have left their chickens, their cows, their vegetable garden to take a loan to start a business to stitch fashion clothes for the West. It has created a very vulnerable dependence on a fickle global market, one in which often a few people do very well in the short-term, but in the longer term as there is a glut in the market, as the prices go up of transport, as the currency is devalued in a Third World country, people find themselves worse off than they were before. Tragically also, micro-finance…

by Helena Norberg-Hodge

Sep 9, 2006 10:45:00 AM cite

Homero Aridjis:

by Homero Aridjis

Sep 9, 2006 10:45:00 AM cite

Irina Yasina: There is no opposition between macro-financing and micro-financing, therefore we can’t say what is better. The state should finance some big projects, it refers to as macro-financing, while the commerce and individual people should finance small business. People should finance their own projects, it refers to as micro-financing. The World Bank should help and realize the macro-financing, but it doesn’t cancel the necessity and individual initiative, which refers to as micro-financing. Well there is no opposition, that's why both of these systems and directions should exist.

by Irina Yasina

Sep 9, 2006 10:45:00 AM cite

Jerry Mander: Answertext will be available soon.

by Jerry Mander

Sep 9, 2006 10:45:00 AM cite

Jesper Green: The development of developing countries should take place, in many ways I’m not an expert in that field, but I think we don’t want the underdeveloped countries to be dependent on the western world. If that happens, then we are still exploiting them and then it is like state slavery all over again. So I think we should serve them, but we shouldn’t make them dependent on us. Another controversial issue is do we really want to, do the world, do the planet want to help them? Is the planet okay with our helping those underdeveloped countries, because if we help them will their population explode so much that the planet rights that we talk so much that we take from the nature and we have to give back to the nature, it’s very controversial, but is it violating planet rights if we help underdeveloped countries? It’s very controversial, and it’s a question that should be answered but it’s okay, I think, I guess, I hope.

by Jesper Green

Sep 9, 2006 10:45:00 AM cite

Jodie Evans: So the first answer would be the kind of getting stuck in an either or. That there are probably many more solutions that can come out of the question than just two ways to look at it. My personal opinion is that small is always better, that what we've seen is in the financing of developing nations, so much of the money ends up in the pockets of so few, so I'm a definite proponent of keeping it as small as possible. Micro, micro, micro.

by Jodie Evans

Sep 9, 2006 10:45:00 AM cite

John Gage: Micro-finance, macro-finance are tools. More important than the specific form of a tool is the base idea. Give people the tools, the resources, to change their lives, and people do know how to do that. Now, knowledge is spread unevenly. So, it is possible that someone in one country has a much better idea than someone in another about how to use a certain amount of water to create a certain amount of product, a certain amount of food crop. If that knowledge can be exchanged easily, if experience in the very local conditions of food production, water use, resource, husbandry, the ability to grow, to create, if the local conditions and local knowledge can be made easily available, and then the fundamental investment is made possible, investments in clean water, investments in seed, investments in better cattle, better generations of animals that yield the food that humans need. If those investments can be made, then the developing countries, the people in those countries can take advantage. Today, the disparate amount of investment is what holds everyone back. So, if you go to a poor village anywhere in the world and ask someone, “What changes can you make that would alter your life?” Everyone knows. The tool of micro-finance, for the first time, allows investments at the size of an individual’s needs, for a pottery wheel, for a cow, for a chicken, for a pig, for something, for a cell phone, for a device to alter how they make some change in their lives, their family’s lives. Those micro-finance tools enabled this knowledge and desire, to change, to take place. On the macro-level, if large sums of money are given to large projects, very often the inefficiencies do not enable those at the bottom with the immediate needs to utilize them. That should be [audio ends].

by John Gage

Sep 9, 2006 10:45:00 AM cite

Jonathan Granoff: I was in Sri Lanka observing a great wise man instructing representatives of the government of several decades ago, who were planning on building a huge dam, and the wise man suggested that the social organization at a village level had nurtured and protected and kept harmonious both the communities and communities’ relationship to the environment for thousands of years. And he said, if you give the people in these villages nails and pumps to get deeper in the water table for irrigation, so they can irrigate their crops more easily, they can organize their economics effectively. Now, I thought about this, and I thought, well they - they won't necessarily organize their economics in terms of the global economy well, but the point of reference that he was making is they would organize their economics in terms of the environment in which they were living well, and their lives would be sufficiently enriched to have a high quality. But he said to the bureaucrats you'll probably want to build the central - the central electrical grid more effectively because that will give you greater control and power. And, so then he said, and the issue is to find a balance between the wisdom of village life, the wisdom of communities that have a sense of nurturing their - the soil in which they emerge from, both the social and physical soil, and the benefits of higher levels of technology and organization. So, we need to have both dimensions, and we need to have a sense of respect for the values of each. There is a value in large-scale social organization of skills and capital; but to completely neglect the value of what has been learned over thousands of years in villages all over the planet, and how to nurture and husband the soil, and the community, this is foolish. We need a balance.

by Jonathan Granoff

Sep 9, 2006 10:45:00 AM cite

Jonathan Meese: Finance may finance itself, e.g. the bank Richard Wagner. Micro- and macro-finance are inexistent, they are only elusions, gestures of awkwardness and operations of ardour. The only counting is neutrality. No rashes are allowed any more, i.e. money finances itself, uncouples from the human and becomes its own substance. Then mankind can begin to regard themselves as being money. Human is his own token money, e.g. war-loan, e.g. body as money.There is no other possibility to draw off the blood and withdraw the further existing money. Respect, humbleness and gold are the point, e.g. Fort Knox. Fort Knox is a dwelling of total respect. In this building people are not wanted - they do not reflect anything, only gold reflects itself as the monolith in '2001 - Odyssey in Space'. This monolith reflects the most human thing namely the nonentity. Everything is a circular flow, i.e. nature circuits itself. In this nature there is money in the form of animals. Nature is the jewel, the crystal of all beginning. In this crystal every fate is reflected, i.e. this destiny is the garanty and the money of the total revolution.

by Jonathan Meese