SWFs &Global Capital Circuits
Today’s column revisits my earlier discussion (January 8 to February 5, 2017) of Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs). At that time, the Authorities were proposing a SWF as one of three priorities, laying the foundations for Guyana’s national petroleum management framework. My earlier effort (and today’s) offers a Guyana perspective on this matter, in the hope of furthering better design outcomes.
Such an outcome is crucial, given the global drumbeat (strongly echoed in the local media) which asserts that SWFs are “progressive policy proposals.” Indeed, these are advocated as representing only the best interests of small poor petroleum exporters. I do not believe Guyana can afford such “progressive orthodoxy.” I shall advance later that all SWFs recycle surpluses generated from national resources exploitation in Guyana-type economies, into global capital accumulation circuits. These accumulation circuits drive capitalist expansion and growth, yet this feature is never stressed in proposals to establish SWFs! Indeed, it is typically claimed: SWFs only perform essential roles for the benefit of petroleum-rich Guyana-type economies. While this driver is never admitted in the discourse on SWFs, I shall have much to say on it, when I expand later in some detail on my Buxton Proposal.
