Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
While neoliberal economic orthodoxy has generated great wealth, it has also increased inequality, hollowed out community, and despoiled the environment. Our team fosters North-South dialogue on reimagined rules and institutions of global economic governance capable of delivering equitable, inclusive, and sustainable growth and providing global public goods.
Unfortunately, those Western governments with decisionmaking power and resources to help vulnerable countries respond to the polycrisis are not inclined to use it, given domestic cost-of-living crises in G7 countries, the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, and limited domestic political appetite for international initiatives.
Both South Africa and the United States wrestle with severe inequality, polarization, and the corrosion of democratic institutions. South Africa’s experiences provide important lessons for the United States’ own governance challenges.
Dissatisfaction with globalization has turned into a powerful force, with unchecked globalism increasingly seen as a threat to the integrity of democratic rule. Policymakers must reframe globalization to mitigate its negative consequences while keeping its core growth-enhancing dynamics intact.
Although Wall Street would be ferociously opposed to policies that limit the unfettered flow of capital around the world, the right polices could sharply reduce the economic disruption wreaked on workers, producers, farmers, and the middle class.
To help expand and sustain America’s middle class, U.S. foreign policy makers need a new agenda that will rebuild trust at home and abroad.