It's just been reported that the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development - usually referred to as the OECD - has issued another negative statement regarding the supposed effects of Brexit.
This time, following several previous negative statements, the OECD is predicting that growth in the UK's economy will fall and the pound will slump, although a reversal of the Brexit decision would be universally positive and save us from Armageddon. The BBC has leapt upon this news as another opportunity to promote its anti-Brexit position, but exactly what is the OECD ?
Originally founded in 1948 as an entirely European organisation, the present incarnation came into being in 1961, when non-European countries were invited to join. The organisation is based in France and is, in effect, a talking shop for political representatives from numerous nations to try to apply pressure wherever they feel it's needed.
Twenty two of the current 35 members of the OECD are also members of the European Union, including the United Kingdom. A number of major 'emerging' economies are not members, notably the so-called BRICs countries - Brazil, Russia, India and China - and also Indonesia, Nigeria, Malaysia, and other countries which are likely to be the major growth areas in the coming decades; only one country form South America and 2 from Asia (excluding Turkey and Israel) are members. In essence, the OECD is a protectionist Western organisation run by the current leading economic powers and for the benefit of the same powers; it's hardly lacking in bias.
Along with assorted other protectionist lobbyists, the OECD is keen to avoid any disturbance to the 'status quo'; it likes things as they are and hates the uncertainty of change. That it's forecasts for the UK's economy are repeatedly and universally gloomy is hardly a surprise, though listening to the way in which its prognostications are reported could make one believe that it is the fount of all knowledge and wisdom and to oppose it can only lead to catastrophe.
Perhaps the OECD is right and Brexit will lead to disaster, but what if it's wrong and Brexit actually opens up a brave new world of opportunity ? Over the centuries and millennia of recorded history, those who decried exploration, new ideas and change were almost always wrong. Those brave souls who sailed the oceans to discover not only that the world wasn't flat but also new continents would never have been funded by the OECD; those who claimed that human beings could never withstand the 'high speeds' of trains were shown to be ludicrously wrong. Man could never fly, said some, and the earth was at the centre of the universe claimed others. So many discoveries and inventions would have been stifled had those with the mind set of the OECD won the day.
Today, the OECD and like-minded international organisations do everything that they can to support their economic world view; they reject all alternatives and sail on, ignoring the danger signals that are everywhere. Vast debt, both personal and governmental eventually has to be settled; vast inequalities between nations that mean the 'developed' economies are living on borrowed time, as well as money, are ignored. Withdraw and protect is the policy and it's doomed to failure.
The next major war will be all about economic power and opportunity. The billions in Asia, Africa and South America will eventually demand their pound of flesh, and the sooner we in the West realise it, the better. Free and fair trade for all is the way forward and the OECD needs to look outwards not inwards if it's to be taken seriously.
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