Globalization of finance

According to Dembinski,[3]​ financial globalization involves the progressive fusion of national financial systems into an emerging global system. This system consists of two levels: a global financial market that provides financing to the largest companies on a global scale, and the sum of funds around the world that constitute the local level, and that channel more and more savings and cash to the first level. The author points out that it is not certain, on the one hand, that this stratification is efficient from an economic perspective, while on the other it limits the ability of small and medium-sized companies to access financing.

Dembinski also points out that the financial system has become the osatura of the economy and contemporary society, and increasingly it is the degree of solvency that determines what the rights of people, communities or countries are or can be.

Financial crisis and global agenda

This central character of finance with respect to the economy, and of the economy with respect to social organization, causes some authors[4]​ to place the crisis of the financial system in the framework of a generalized systemic crisis that affects the entire economy, society and the planet, and which is manifested by signs such as poverty and inequality (between countries and within each country), international trade governed by unfair rules that benefit only a few, a predatory energy model that depletes sources due to excess demand, and climate change as a consequence of unsustainable development and consumption models. Faced with all this, it is pointed out that a refoundation of the financial system is necessary but insufficient: what is needed is a global agenda on a world scale that leads to a paradigm shift, and of which the refoundation of the global financial system is a part along with other transformations that lead to "[a model] of different globalization that is not only guided by principles of profitability, but also by justice, solidarity and responsibility towards citizens." (see the proposals section).

Contenido

El sistema financiero de la primera década del siglo es el fruto de cuatro décadas de liberalización financiera, iniciado en los primeros años 1970, y que se aceleró como consecuencia indirecta de algunos acontecimientos históricos, especialmente con el desmantelamiento del bloque comunista a partir de 1989. Según Ibase[5]​ se trata de un proceso doble que tiene lugar paralelamente en las escalas nacional e internacional.

"Por un lado, la liberalización financiera nacional está centrada en la desregulación de mercados financieros nacionales y en la consiguiente modificación de los instrumentos de política económica para adaptarse a las nuevas reglas. (...) La idea que los mercados financieros totalmente libres podrían ser una amenaza fue substituida por la ideología de que los mercados no se equivocan".[6]​ (...)"Cuando un país permite la libre entrada y salida del capital financiero está enviando señales a los dueños de las riquezas locales que ahora tienen una opción entre someterse a las leyes nacionales o trasladar sus operaciones a un ambiente más amistoso. Esto significa que si el gobierno de un país decide reducir la tasa de interés para estimular el crecimiento y el empleo en su economía, los dueños del capital financiero pueden optar por llevarse su riqueza a otro país más atractivo, forzando al gobierno a revertir su política económica. (...) De hecho, no es solo la libre elección de una política monetaria lo que se ve afectado. La decisión de imponer impuestos progresivos, por ejemplo, tendrá que enfrentar la reacción hostil de los inversores con respecto a dicha política. Si la política les parece inaceptable pueden simplemente huir con su capital a otro país. Esto puede ocurrir con cualquier política que no sea del agrado de inversores y rentistas. (...) La mayor parte del tiempo no es necesario que la fuga de capitales ocurra realmente. La mera amenaza de iniciar un episodio de fuga de capitales intimida lo suficiente a los gobiernos nacionales como para hacerlos reconsiderar su posición."[6]​.

"Por otro lado, la liberalización financiera internacional (...) consiste en desmantelar los controles de capital para aumentar la libertad con la cual el capital financiero puede moverse a través de las fronteras nacionales". Durante la segunda década de los años 1990, "El desmantelamiento de los controles de capital expuso a aquellos países que los habían implementado a una creciente volatilidad y a crisis financieras recurrentes, entre otros efectos devastadores, sin un aumento perceptible en términos de desarrollo económico. (...) La liberalización, por lo tanto, le abrió las puertas al capital financiero, pero no al capital productivo. El capital financiero no busca oportunidades de convertirse en capital productivo sino que especula con las diferencias entre valores productivos. (...) Cuando la liquidez es abundante en los mercados financieros internacionales, como actualmente, hay un exceso de capital financiero en busca de oportunidades en todo el mundo, sobrevaluando el tipo de cambio en los países en vías de desarrollo, dificultando sus exportaciones e incluso amenazando sus niveles internos de producción frente a la competencia de las importaciones baratas".[6]​.

The national scale and financial governance

According to Germain,[7]​ there are two elements of resistance at the national level against the domination of the global nature of financial governance, these are firstly an "outward-oriented self-interest" according to which governments favor the establishment of international rules that favor their own interests and those of the main financial institutions of their country. The second element is an "inward-oriented self-interest" according to which a country's governments and financial institutions resist the imposition of international norms and rules that conflict with existing national practices. Added to these two elements is the prerogative of issuing currency, the material basis of the financial system.

Local financial governance

At the local level, true financial governance systems in which different actors intervene do not yet exist in a widespread manner. Thus, at least in Africa, and according to Yatta[8]​, local communities evolve in a difficult context characterized by the gap between the new powers transferred by decentralization and the amounts allocated in local budgets. Participatory budgets") are experiences developed especially at a local level throughout the world, in which participatory democracy has been developed as a system for preparing the budgets of the entities concerned.

• - Financialization (economic): According to Calame.[9]​ The causes of the financial crisis must be sought in financialization"), that is, in the process of domination, on an international scale, of the market of financial flows, over the market of exchanges of real products, as a result of a much greater economic weight of the former over the latter in the context of an inseparable market. Financialization thus benefits from the technological innovations of recent years (especially the Internet) that have led to an acceleration of transaction volume.

• - Financialization of mentalities: according to Dembinski[10]​ the uninterrupted growth of the economy in the second half of the century and the beginning of the century has made it a fundamental constituent element of societies, as well as finance the central aspect of the economy. Thus, on the one hand, the possession of goods and the purchasing power determine power and the risk of social exclusion and govern people's destinies. On the other hand, in an open and mobile society, finance transforms interpersonal trust into pseudotrust in institutions guaranteed by the liquidity of the markets.

• - Externalization of risk: According to Chomsky[11]​ the system does not satisfactorily assume the costs that an exchange between two agents can cause to a third party, including society as a whole or the environment. This de-responsibility results in a greater probability of the appearance of serious and periodic financial crises. Ignoring the externalities of transactions implies, according to the author, that "the public sector assumes costs and risks while the benefit is privatized"[12]​.

• - Extraterritoriality: the exponential increase in the volume of foreign exchange reserves is a financial innovation after the Second World War, and one of the characteristics of the economic and social interdependence that leads to intensifying globalization.

• - Capital flows and explosion of financial transactions: international debt, direct investments as well as transfers of all types, overall, exceed commercial transactions in volume. The explosion of financial transactions has given rise to the dependence of Western societies on finance. This means that they are especially sensitive to variations in the financial system. Two other financial innovations have accompanied this transformation: a) the proportional increase in services in the productive system in recent decades, corresponding to an increase in the use of parallel intangible products (marketing, advertising, transportation). b) the explosion of pension funds fuels significant demand and contributes to increasing the volume of financial operations.

• - Confusion and fusion between currency and finance: between the liquid asset, the best example of which is the banknote, and the obligation issued by a government, there is a gradation of products that makes it impossible to establish a clear demarcation between currency and finance. As a consequence, the boundaries between the public and private sectors are also blurred.

• - Growing role of banking regulations: given the complexity of financial activity, central banks have acquired an exceptional role as supervisors of financial regulation.

• - Markets and governments: The establishment of flexible exchange rates after the decade that followed the suspension of the convertibility of the dollar into gold, has been accompanied by a progressive development of the exchange market. As a consequence, the options and decisions of governments regarding economic policy have been directly exposed to the verdict of private operators.,[13]​.

• - Invention of short-term profit mechanisms: These mechanisms favor speculative agents and leave the value of real production, and the labor market that accompanies it, as well as indirectly to the public economy, at the whim of market fluctuations, which in the absence of sufficient regulatory mechanisms suffer enormously as a consequence of financial crises.[14]​.

"The 2008 financial crisis was unleashed directly due to the collapse of the real estate bubble in the United States in 2006, which caused approximately October 2007 the so-called subprime mortgage crisis. The repercussions of the mortgage crisis began to manifest themselves in an extremely serious way since the beginning of 2008, first infecting the American financial system, and then the international one, resulting in a deep liquidity crisis, and indirectly causing other economic phenomena, such as a global food crisis "World food crisis (2007-2008)"), different stock market crashes (such as the stock market crisis of January 2008 and the global stock market crisis of October 2008) and, overall, an economic crisis on an international scale".[15]

Among the fundamental causes of the crisis it is worth highlighting, according to Rozo,[16]​ a "decoupling" between the real economy and the monetary economy. The author states that financial markets have become "autonomous investment fields or "financial containers", in which the excess liquidity that exists in the real economy is parked. These containers become speculation in currencies, works of art, precious metals, real estate, company shares and more recently even oil and food. Evidently, these containers have limits and when they reach them they cause the explosion of speculative bubbles."

The accumulation of these assets has been facilitated by neoliberal globalization, a high interdependence and a weak[17]​ and permissive global regulation (see Basel II) that has promoted the increase in risk and has not been able to put a stop to the multiplication, in the last decade, of complex financial products, which superimpose debts and loans on top of each other and that, following a greedy logic of increasing profits without limit, grant confidence to actors of dubious financial credibility, in addition to privileging the short term. The explosion of the global real estate bubble (Subprime mortgage crisis), the result of years of speculative frenzy in this sector, has been the trigger for the financial crisis.

The complex and catastrophic consequences of this crisis seem to agree with authors who, like Delors,[18]​ consider that the self-regulation of markets is impossible or imperfect and that with globalization financial distortions end up affecting all economies and societies on a global scale. Another current goes further and considers that the entire capitalist model is already unsalvageable. For example, D'Escoto[19] states that we are facing a "systematic crisis" produced by a system "lacking ethics" that "can no longer take it anymore." According to the president of the UN General Assembly, "capitalism carries within itself the gene of self-destruction."

The 2008 financial crisis took place in historically industrialized countries but was preceded, in the 1990s, by financial crises in emerging countries, especially in Asia and Latin America. Like the 2008 crisis, it was a liquidity crisis, the result of an alteration in financial market conditions with no causal connection to the real economy.

As a way out of the crisis, the long trillion dollars agreed for the financial stimulus of the international economy is more than what was managed in the previous debates and is, without a doubt, the largest concerted fiscal plan in history.[20] Many analysts foresee a recovery in economic growth and therefore an exit from the crisis, in the majority of affected countries, around 2010.

Las instituciones internacionales con peso mayor en las finanzas mundiales son el Fondo Monetario Internacional, el Banco Mundial, la Organización Mundial del Comercio y el G7, reconvertido recientemente en G20.

En otro lugar, no por ello menos importante, se sitúan los organismos reguladores, es decir aquellos cuya función exclusiva es la producción de normas sobre la organización de la finanza y la vigilancia sobre su cumplimiento, sin intervenir directamente en el mercado financiero.

Según sus críticos, la gobernanza de todas estas instituciones se caracteriza por su poco nivel de democracia[21]​ y por ser "símbolos de una gobernanza mundial considerada ilegítima".[22]​ Concretamente, el mundo en vías de desarrollo está subrepresentado, a pesar de la importante reforma que tuvo lugar con posterioridad a la crisis financiera de 2008 y que consistió en la inclusión de varios países emergentes en el G7, reconvertido en G20. Este flagrante "déficit democrático", en palabras de Ibase[6]​ "no impide que [estas instituciones] tomen decisiones que afectan profundamente la vida y el bienestar de las sociedades excluidas de las negociaciones". Por otro lado sus acciones han sido consideradas ineficaces, contraproducentes y catastróficas, especialmente desde la perspectiva de las políticas sociales de los países en desarrollo."[23]​.

Es importante constatar también la jerarquía que se establece entre estas instituciones en el marco de la gobernanza mundial. Concretamente, la independencia del FMI, el BM y la OMC respecto de la tutela de las Naciones Unidas resulta en un equilibrio de poder favorable a aquellos primeros[24]​ y a sus políticas neoliberales, y convierte a la ONU en un actor con influencia secundaria o simplemente testimonial, en la promoción del desarrollo internacional.

International financial institutions (IFI)

• - The International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The International Monetary Fund was defined by the Bretton Woods Conference at the end of World War II with the objective of regulating the fixed exchange monetary system. However, the abandonment of this system in the 1970s led to the evolution of the mission of this institution. Today it continues to regulate the financial system while helping developing countries by providing funds to overcome eventual crises due to deficits in their balance of payments.

These credits, often essential for the countries in question, have been offered in exchange for certain conditionalities (within the framework of the so-called structural adjustment policies) whose objective was to balance the balance of payments, although their high social cost has often prevented these countries from escaping the spiral of underdevelopment, or has even helped to aggravate it.

The IMF's voting system is based on the size of member countries' capital investments. Thus, the members of the G7 control 45% of the voting power, of which the United States controls 17% which gives them de facto veto power. Thus, the IMF has been criticized for its stance in defense of the interests of Western countries and specifically the United States. According to Bello, this was the case when Japan, to prevent the 1997 financial crisis, proposed the creation of an Asian Monetary Fund, which other countries in the region hailed as a good initiative. However, the IMF and the United States were fiercely opposed to this.[25]​.

According to Gonçalves[26]​ "historical experience shows that the programs directed by the IMF tend to lead developing countries towards a path of instability and crisis. Taken together, [these] crises go beyond the economic dimension, producing social problems and political and institutional ruptures in developing countries."

After the G-20 London Summit in April 2009, it was agreed to strengthen the IMF, by injecting a huge amount of funds to act as a lender of last resort, and it was also given a central role in overseeing the financial system alongside the new Financial Stability Board. At the same time, the IMF was tasked with increasing its effectiveness and transparency, better representing developing countries, and ending the leonine conditionalities that accompanied its credits.[27]​.

• - The World Bank (WB).

The World Bank is the "twin" institution of the IMF, also born at the Bretton Woods Conference, with the objective of reducing poverty through low-interest loans, interest-free credit at the banking level and economic support for developing countries. It was initially created in order to assist European reconstruction during the post-war period, later expanding its functions in the field of development and evolving its organization into what is today known as the World Bank Group, made up of the following agencies: International Bank for Reconstruction and Development; International Development Association; International Finance Corporation; Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency; International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes.

The value of the vote in the World Bank is also organized through capital subscriptions that are proportional to the wealth of each country represented. Thus, the United States controls 16.39% of the voting power, Japan 7.86%, Germany 4.49%, France, the United Kingdom and Italy 4.30%, etc.

The autonomy of the Bretton Woods institutions has been given to them since their foundation. These are considered "specialized agencies" according to the Charter of the United Nations (UN) of 1945 and the nature of their relationship with the UN, stipulated in the respective relationship agreements, affirms the autonomy of the IFIs in matters within their competence. This organizational independence of these institutions and their governance favorable to the most industrialized countries has had enormous consequences for economic policy and for the social and economic development of the planet, especially in developing countries.[28] Likewise, it also largely prevented the institutions from assuming the tasks for which they were created in the beginning: ensuring the stability of the major currencies, and facilitating post-war reconstruction. Its mandate was limited from the beginning by the United States, which did not accept Keynes's proposals to establish a world monetary system.[23] Specifically, the IMF lost the function of stabilizing the exchange rate system after 1971[29].

• - Other international financial institutions.

Among the financial institutions that operate at an international level, regional development banks (Inter-American Development Bank; Asian Development Bank; African Development Bank; European Bank for Reconstruction and Development; etc.), bilateral development banks such as the Dutch Development Finance Company, and other regional financial institutions such as the European Investment Bank; Black Sea Development Bank; Islamic Development Bank; etc.).

Other institutions with influence in the financial system

• - The World Trade Organization (WTO).

The WTO oversees international trade agreements by defining the rules of trade between member states. The WTO succeeded the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1995, which in turn was founded in 1947. THE fundamental purpose of the WTO in practice has been to reduce or completely eliminate international barriers to trade (financial liberalization process).

Other objectives of the WTO, as a forum for multilateral trade negotiations, are:

• - Manage commercial dispute settlement procedures (disputes between countries).

• - Supervise commercial policies.

• - Coordinate economic policies to develop demand and employment, especially in lower-income countries.[30]​.

• - Cooperate with the World Bank and the IMF with the aim of achieving greater coherence between economic and trade policy on a global scale.

Two recently created and fundamentally important agreements developed and administered by the WTO are: the General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS); and the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The first opens up to private capital, on a global scale, services until then considered public in many countries, such as education and health. The second involves the intervention of the WTO in the field of the definition of property.

The formal voting system in the WTO is universal suffrage per member country (one country, one vote). However, a common practice (and on the other hand one of the aspects of the WTO most criticized by developing countries and social movements) is early decision-making between the most powerful countries (the so-called "green room" negotiations)[31]​

[32]​ and indirectly imposed on other countries.

• - The G20.

The Group of 20, or G-20, is a group of countries formed in 1999 by the eight most industrialized countries (G-8), eleven newly industrialized countries from all regions of the world, and the European Union as a bloc.

On the one hand, it is argued that the G20 is more representative than the G8, since it represents 70% of the world population. Thus, "the G-20 Summit has been the first in which large emerging economies such as China, Brazil, India or Mexico sit at the table on equal terms with the most powerful"[27]​.

But on the other hand, critics argue that the G20 does not have the right to make decisions that concern everyone because it represents a group of states chosen at random. Specifically, the poorest countries or regions are not represented in it. The G20 does not have a Charter and its discussions are not made public, which makes it a non-democratic institution."[33]​[34]​.

Regulatory bodies

Regulatory bodies (...) are associations of administrative authorities in the financial sector. They have in common their technical nature: they are agencies specialized in the regulation and supervision of the financial market.

The work of these regulatory bodies is aimed, more than at creating a uniform Law, at establishing basic principles, professional criteria, that promote the reform of the different national regulations.

The resolutions and technical reports of the international financial regulation and control organizations are transferred through the financial supervisors to the regional forums. In these forums, agreements are adopted and decisions are approved aimed at the application of international criteria in their territories. Among these regional forums, the one that forms the European Union stands out. Many of its directives and regulations on financial matters are a faithful reflection of the agreements adopted internationally. The lack of democratic legitimacy of these organizations to dictate international standards applicable in domestic law has been criticized. It is a fact that national parliaments become mere recipients of the decisions adopted by these organizations, thus recognizing their technical inability to organize the financial market.

These associations contribute with their work to the standardization of financial contracts, reducing the cost of transactions and increasing liquidity in the markets. Many of the products used in the subprime crisis lacked this standardization, making their risks difficult to measure and, ultimately, this lack of clarity has damaged their liquidity."[35]

The Financial Stability Forum was created in 1999 to promote international financial stability through greater exchange of information and cooperation in financial supervision and market surveillance. Objectives of this institution are also the improvement of the functioning of markets and the reduction of systemic risk.

It is made up of senior representatives of international financial institutions, international groups of regulators and supervisors, expert committees of central banks and national authorities in charge of financial stability. The original members were the G-7, plus five other countries that represent important financial centers.

The FEF is an institution created as a consequence of the financial crises of the 1990s, with the special mission of avoiding or mitigating the effects of future crises. Its recommendation reports to the G-7 have been considered excellent, although the difficulties in its implementation have been criticized.[36]​.

At the G-20 London Summit in April 2009 it was decided to create a successor to the FEF, the Financial Stability Board (FSB). The CEF includes the previous members of the FEF and admits the rest of the G20 countries, Spain and the European Commission as new members.

"La regulación internacional de los mercados financieros está en proceso de construcción. La globalización y financialización de la vida económica no han venido acompañadas de un régimen internacional de las finanzas. Han sido los técnicos y los profesionales quienes han reaccionado, creando comités y asociaciones para adoptar acuerdos tendentes a dar seguridad a las transacciones.

La reciente crisis subprime ha puesto de relieve las debilidades del sistema, como la falta de control de los productos financieros más complejos, los conflictos de interés que plantean algunos sistemas de remuneración de los intermediarios o la necesidad de regular a las agencias de rating y a otros guardianes del mercado. Las primeras respuestas vienen de nuevo de los comités profesionales. Optan por la prudencia, evitando una sobrerreacción ante los efectos de la crisis."[39]​.

• - Características de la regulación.

"La perfección de los contratos, sus sistemas de garantías y la ejecución de los mismos tienen lugar a través de sistemas centralizados y encadenados, cuya naturaleza jurídica está todavía por determinar. En esta forma de regular el mercado financiero, el poder se desplaza de los Tribunales que aplican el Derecho privado a los organismos profesionales y firmas globales de abogados, y sistemas de arbitraje internacional, que aplican los complejos acuerdos y desarrollos técnicos elaborados por los supervisores y la industria financiera.".

La principal debilidad de esta forma de regular y aplicar las normas es su déficit democrático. Las normas se adoptan y aplican por sujetos privados en defensa de sus propios intereses corporativos. Para evitar este problema de falta de legitimación, se asumen compromisos protectores de los intereses generales, como el de consulta pública de todas las iniciativas relativas a la regulación del mercado financiero. Es el caso en la Unión Europea con el llamado sistema Lamfalussy.[39]​.

• - Naturaleza de la regulación.

"Los acuerdos de los organismos internacionales de regulación financiera no son fuente del Derecho. Ni sus firmantes actúan en representación de los Estados. No parece necesario insistir en que los bancos centrales, las comisiones de valores, los supervisores de seguros o las asociaciones de bancos de inversión, carecen de poder para concluir verdaderos acuerdos internacionales. Este tipo de acuerdos constituye una de las expresiones más relevantes de soft law, es decir, de estándares y normas de conducta profesionales creados al margen de los parlamentos de los Estados nacionales. Son reglas técnicas que sin tener la naturaleza de ley tienen sin embargo el efecto de regular las finanzas internacionales. Forman parte de la nueva lex mercatoria de las finanzas internacionales, surgida de los operadores globales. Dan respuesta uniforme a las necesidades que plantea el mercado financiero en una economía globalizada. Los estándares proliferan y tienen éxito por su pragmatismo. Al fin y al cabo, dan solución a los problemas que plantean las finanzas internacionales.

Son acuerdos que gozan de un elevado rigor técnico. El detalle de la regulación es en gran medida el resultado del asesoramiento que prestan las grandes firmas abogados anglosajonas a los bancos de inversión y demás operadores globales. Ninguna operación financiera internacional de cierto volumen se realiza sin su participación. Han colonizado el Derecho financiero global Ofertas públicas en sus diversas modalidades, fusiones y adquisiciones, y tantas otras operaciones financieras son diseñadas con la participación de estas firmas globales. Su crecimiento ha sido paralelo al desarrollo de los mercados financieros. Los Estados nacionales no han sabido regular y ordenar los nuevos mercados e instrumentos financieros, y ocupando su lugar las firmas globales han pasado a actuar de hecho como verdaderos reguladores de los mercados financieros internacionales. Representan la cultura de la élite legal. Del mismo modo que Napoleón colonizó Europa con sus códigos, las grandes firmas de abogados pueden estar llevando a cabo una nueva forma de neo-colonialismo."[39]​.

• - Papel de la autoregulación.

"Los Estados y los organismos internacionales asumen como propios los estándares y las mejores prácticas de la industria financiera. De este modo, mediante una autorregulación regulada se transforma la regla privada en norma pública.

La autorregulación adopta diversas modalidades. Comprende desde los códigos de conducta de la industria, a reglas técnicas o de mejores prácticas profesionales. Un ejemplo de autorregulación regulada es el que se da en la Unión Europea. En la Unión Europea son frecuentes las remisiones a las “prácticas de mercado aceptadas”, para delimitar la conducta que deben mantener en el mercado los intermediarios y operadores.

Desde el punto de vista de la eficiencia de la regulación y de su adaptación a las cambiantes condiciones del mercado, resulta inadecuado fijar en la norma legal la conducta que los operadores deben mantener en el mercado. Se opta por reconocer las prácticas aceptadas en el mercado como criterio delimitador de la actuación que se debe mantener. Dichas prácticas deben ser aceptadas por el regulador atendiendo al mejor funcionamiento del mercado. Para determinar las prácticas que van a resultar exceptuadas del abuso de mercado, hay que tener en cuenta el punto de vista de todos los participantes en el mercado, incluidos los consumidores.20 No puede admitirse que la industria, una de las partes de la relación, imponga su conducta a la otra, es decir, a los consumidores, como parte más vulnerable."[39]​.

The Basel Accords

• - Basel I Agreement.

This set of recommendations published in 1988 "was a narrowly targeted measure aimed at a small group of internationally active banks competing in the same markets, to eliminate unfair competitive advantages resulting from discrepancies related to regulatory regimes." This agreement "was simple and established that national supervisors should require internationally active banks to maintain a net worth (equity capital) in the proportion of 8% of their assets considered high risk (the risk was determined by the committee itself, and added to the annex to the agreement)."

"Although Basel I was created to be applied to the richest countries, it became the standard for all banks in (almost) all countries (...) By the mid-1990s, more than 120 countries had adhered to Basel I or intended to do so after a certain transition period. (...) However, the need for a profound modification of Basel I was recognized to create appropriate regulations to be adopted by a large number of countries. countries"[6].

• - Basel II Agreement.

The purpose of this agreement, initially published in 2004, is "the creation of an international standard that serves as a reference for banking regulators, in order to establish the necessary capital requirements, to ensure the protection of entities against financial and operational risks."[40]​.

"The Basel II agreement is very complex. In addition to determining differentiated capital requirements for different classes of banks, it also directs the action of supervisors and defines access to information requirements. Basel II depends on three pillars: risk-based capital ratios, supervision and market discipline. The most important section of the new text refers to capital requirements. (...) [T]he supervisors perform more functions. They evaluate the risk rating, management systems, and administrative structure of the bank to implement the bank's strategy. risk and to manage those risks that have not been explicitly addressed in the new agreement, such as liquidity risks."[6]​.

Among the criticisms of Basel II, according to Ibase,[6][41]​ it is worth highlighting:

• - The Agreement includes what are considered best practices developed by private banks to measure and manage risks. These practices are at the heart of the failed methods used to prepare the basis for the 2008 financial crisis, which shows the erroneous strategy and failure of the agreement even before it was adopted globally.

• - Despite everything, the possible far-reaching consequences beyond the search for financial stability: Countries are expected to accept and put these rules into practice, even when their contribution to the elaboration of the agreement was not required. Participation was restricted to the wealthiest members of rich countries.

• - The application may lead to increased financial instability, as regulatory capital requirements are exposed to greater risk.

Failure to adapt to historical changes

"For 50 years, International Financial Institutions have gone through a long economic and political history. The context in which they work and their true role have evolved radically without their mandate and mode of operation having evolved in parallel. The IFIs have maintained a basically unchanged structure despite the radical evolution of their environment."[23]​.

Ineffective, counterproductive, and selective remedies

The IFIs have promoted counterproductive remedies: the most widespread recipe to combat both poverty (World Bank) and financial crises (IMF) has been the liberalization of markets, and in practice this has favored, in most cases, speculative financial investments instead of productive investments. As an example, we can cite Malaysia, a country that has suffered to a much lesser extent the consequences of the Asian financial crisis in 1997, for not having followed the recipe of liberalization and applying an interventionist policy instead.[34]​.

Control of the world economy for the benefit of a few

"Critics argue that the IMF and the World Bank have played a fundamental role in the formation and consolidation of the neoliberal order. Through the imposition of structural adjustment programs, they have been the initiators of catastrophic social policies for the population: privatization of healthcare, privatization of education, privatization of public services, forced liberalization of trade, all in perfect accordance with trade policy and the liberal rules of the WTO."

"The IMF and the WB are institutions that have obeyed the interests of the most developed countries and whose main objective has been, among others, the coverage of debt interests, the submission of all countries to the legal rules of deregulation while ensuring the liberalization of capital movements, the resignation of public powers from any form of democratic control of the national economy. Together with the WTO they have been, in essence, the institutional guardians of private interests and political-legal pillars of the world liberal system. It has been the new form of colonialism: the domination of the powerful has manifested itself and has hidden under decision-making within multilateral economic, financial and commercial organizations".[31]

Democratic and transparency deficit

Among financial institutions, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are the most powerful in the world. The liberalization of markets has progressively reduced the ability of states to maneuver in their own economic policy. In compensation, this diminishing authority has not been replaced by democratic power on a multilateral scale. The International Financial Institutions (IFI) present a "democratic deficit" of the institutions that exercise global governance that increasingly affects the planetary population they supposedly represent.[6]​.

On the other hand, the IFIs' accountability mechanisms are non-existent or inadequate. At the state level they are the governments that are accountable to the legislative powers, and at the international level they are the intergovernmental organizations that report to intergovernmental councils made up of representatives of the governments.

Although legislative authority and practices vary in each country, the extent of democratic oversight by national legislative powers over the World Bank and the IMF is weak, according to a survey carried out by several international civil society actors.[42] Legislators, as well as the citizens they represent, have little influence and are barely consulted on issues relating to the World Bank and the IMF. Here are some of the main conclusions of the survey:.

• - In most cases, legislative representatives do not participate in the selection of senior national officials of the Bretton Woods institutions.

• - Priorities and decision-making at the national level are, in practice, the responsibility of the executive branch. Thus, the administrator of the World Bank and the corresponding IMF can participate to different degrees in the decision-making.

• - The establishment of priorities and decision-making at the level of the constituencies of several countries take place in a punctual and non-transparent manner.

• - Annual reports on government activities in the Bretton Woods institutions are not subject to any analysis by legislators.

• - The participation of civil society in the activities of the BWI is essentially limited to special consultations on the occasion of the spring or autumn meetings of these institutions.

• - Governments do not carry out independent audits of their financial obligations towards BWIs.

• - Parliamentarians have limited access to the IBW, due to their restrictive policies regarding access to information.[42]​.

Transparency and democracy must also reach regulatory bodies such as the Basel Committee, among others. This requires, according to IBase, a first effort by civil society to train itself, disseminate information and put pressure on governments in that direction to take a more efficient and responsible stance.[6]​.

Complexity

Instead of centralized and coherent regulation resulting from coordinated action between financial institutions, there is a multitude of laws, standards, treaties, institutions and agreements that are often poorly coordinated between them. "The subdivision of the system into three sectors: banking, securities and insurance, no longer corresponds to the complex reality of international financial markets. The result of this tripartite agreement, combined with the existence of international organizations with overlapping responsibilities, is an enormously complicated network of institutions and committees with no obvious logic or structure"[43]​.

Institutional limitations

"There is neither a Central Bank nor a financial supervision entity with global powers (...). The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been facing its own crisis of identity and legitimacy; and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) is a mere association of national Central Banks with important but very limited functions. (...)[44]​.

On the other hand, in the face of the 2008 financial crisis, the seriousness of the fact of the United Nations' lack of reaction capacity has been highlighted.

Failure to comply with international law

The International Financial Institutions (IFI) have also been criticized for non-compliance with international law, during the time that they openly supported, among others, the racist criminal regime of apartheid in South Africa,[31]​ and the Argentine, Chilean, and Indonesian dictatorships... all with a heavy burden of crimes against humanity: mass torture, rapes, executions, disappearances...

"Corporate governance is the set of processes, habits, policies, laws and institutions that determine the way in which a corporation or company is directed, administered or controlled. Corporate governance also includes the relationships between the various actors involved and the objectives for which the company is governed. The most important actors are the shareholder-members, the management team and the management team. Other actors are employees, customers, creditors, suppliers, regulators, and others in general.

Corporate governance is multi-faceted. Some aspects are: the accountability of individuals related to the company, economic efficiency from the perspective of shareholders as well as the different shareholder cultures around the world.

Since 2001, there has been renewed interest in the corporate governance practices of modern corporations, especially due to the collapse of a number of large US companies such as Enron and MCI Inc."[46]

• - Corporate governance of banking entities.

The financial governance process of banking entities has four fundamental actors:

• - The board of directors.

• - The verification committee.

• - The external verifier.

• - The management (including financial and non-financial managers of the company).

These actors must consider their roles and responsibilities as well as their interaction and how they work together. The quality of financial and company information is determined by the effectiveness of the collaboration between these actors.[47]​.

Some solidarity finance practices have been developed for decades as tools to combat poverty, exclusion and unemployment. Although not all initiatives that are defined as solidarity finance have these social objectives as a priority in practice. "Solidarity finance's mission is to use financial tools for equitable and sustainable development. Its long-term vision is to increase social capital. Its actors are multiple and have different techniques, behaviors and modes of action, but together they give rise to the emergence of a specific identity of solidarity finance. Its competencies are the ability to think globally, to unite individuals and actors around a financial activity, to know the needs of individual economic actors and communities, whatever their economic and social conditions. The function of the solidarity financier consists of financing activities and people within the framework of a general interest, guaranteeing compliance with social capital. Solidarity finance acts in an environment of poverty, exclusion or difficulty in accessing financial services."[48]​.

Because there are no widespread solidarity finance practices on a global scale, it is not yet possible to talk about what global governance of solidarity finance would look like. If at the local level it is social ties and social capital that ensure effective social finance, at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre the idea of creating a "solidarity World Bank" was launched: it was not an alternative copy of the World Bank but rather "linking existing experiences, confronting them, and making alliances between them to increase scale. But to create a network between actors of a solidarity finance, a framework is required that articulates four components: the collection of savings solidarity along with the mobilization of public and private funds (especially in Northern countries), the transfer of credit through financial "tools" (investment funds, guarantee funds), banking intermediation in developing countries and finally the implementation of local savings and/or credit experiences"[49]​.

Las posturas oficiales ante la crisis financiera de 2008 determinan en gran medida la visión de las instituciones internacionales, de los estados y de otros actores sobre el tipo de gobernanza financiera necesaria en el futuro. IBase[41]​ considera que según la visión oficial "el sistema es bueno y puede mejorarse con el ajuste de algunas tuercas y tornillos (...) Así el Foro de Estabilidad Financiera propone normas más estrictas para conducir a las agencias de calificación crediticia, pero no su inhabilitación. El Comité de Basilea considera elevar los coeficientes de capital además de perfeccionar las fórmulas usadas para calcular esos coeficientes de modo que se contemplen los problemas de liquidez, etc."[41]​.

"En círculos oficiales funcionarán dos procesos paralelos a lo largo de los próximos meses o años. Uno procurará medidas y programas para mitigar los efectos de la crisis financiera y de la recesión en la economía real. Esto tendrá lugar a nivel nacional y en algunos casos sobre una base regional. (...) El otro procurará diseñar una nueva arquitectura financiera. Este proceso multilateral se inició el 15 de noviembre en Washington y continuará durante meses, si no años."[41]​.

From international financial institutions

Those attending the Washington Summit of the G20 in November 2008 foresee the adjustments that are included in the following topics: 1. Strengthen transparency and responsibility in financial markets; 2. Improve regulation; 3. Transparently evaluate national regulatory systems; 4. Promote integrity in financial markets; 5. Intensify international cooperation; and 6. Reform international financial institutions, increasing the number of members from emerging countries.

According to IBase, with this the G20 tries to perpetuate the liberalization process, showing confidence in the instruments used until then, such as private risk management or credit rating agencies. Thus, the change of geopolitical course that implies the opening of some of the institutions, such as the Financial Stability Forum and the G20 itself, to emerging countries, was not accompanied by a change of course in regulatory strategies or in the democratization of decision-making but rather served to legitimize the institutions that produced the crisis, as well as to reaffirm their "commitment to an open global economy (...)".[41]

According to another source, the best long-term progress at this summit is "the agreement on coordinated regulation of the financial sector based on greater transparency." Although "the historic event of the summit is the increase in credits granted to the IMF. (...) But "it is not yet possible to know if this will have an impact on the real economy, and furthermore the summit does not provide solutions on the solvency of financial institutions, on the economic relaunch, the homogenization of taxation and accounting standards, etc."[50]​.

Regarding the regulation of banking entities, some proposals are being studied to once again avoid the drift that led to the 2008 crisis, among them:[51]​.

• - buy back the toxic assets (although the mechanism is difficult to apply).

• - provide them with a guarantee that protects them against losses generated by those assets, as was done with Citi or Bank of America.

• - create a public bank that takes back bad assets and frees up the balance sheets of financial entities.

• - introduce an alternative model to massive public intervention.

• - promote a review of financial regulation, with better protection of consumers and investors.

Of the states and continental organizations

The European position consists of expanding on a global scale the principles of regulation, coordination and solidarity that have been the pillars of European construction:

• - Regulation: "Current international financial regulation is a kind of patchwork, crazy and sometimes frayed: the supervision of certain important actors (rating agencies, investment funds) is incomplete; the coherence between the rules (accounting, prudential) and the institutions that define them is insufficient, as insufficient as the fight against non-cooperative tax havens."

• - Coordination: "The same is true in terms of risk analysis: the innumerable international sentinels do not communicate or communicate little among themselves, making it difficult to identify global risks. They must be organized into networks and thus be able to alert leaders early."

In the field of institutional strengthening, the IMF has to play an essential role. "Just as the European Union was equipped with an Ecofin and a Eurogroup, the International Monetary and Financial Committee of the IMF should become a true ministerial council with statutory powers. Emerging countries should be much more involved" following the first steps taken within the framework of the G20 itself (...) "The IMF, relegitimized, must also have instruments adapted to its new mission, guarantee measures, even a new liquidity instrument."

• - Solidarity: "one of the dangers of the current crisis is its connection with climate change and underdevelopment. Europe is the first contributor of development aid; it is setting objectives that are as difficult as they are exemplary in terms of environmental investments. This gives it strong legitimacy to launch the debate in Washington and propose an international conference to improve global economic governance on these bases."[52]​.

The European Union can contribute its experience in financial regulation. Thus, the road map of the Council for Economic and Financial Affairs (Ecofin) is articulated around four axes of work: improving transparency, evaluation of financial products, strengthening prudential requirements and improving the functioning of markets thanks to a more appropriate line of conduct in terms of credit rating.[53]​.

In particular, Gordon Brown proposed converting the IMF into an independent global central bank with its own financial means,[54]​ while Sarkozy proposed that the IMF coordinate global regulation with a plan for global governance and recovery strategy, and that the ILO play a greater role in emerging from the financial crisis.[55]​.

The American orientation, supported by Great Britain and Japan, consists of reviving the engine of the world economy with greater economic stimulus for financial institutions and actors. This contrasts with the European vision that gives more importance to regulation. In practice, the G20 agreed on a package of 1.1 trillion dollars for the IMF that must be dedicated to the issuance of Special Drawing Rights (SDR), although many comments have highlighted the limited nature of the measure.[56]​.

In the regulatory system

Improved financial governance generally needs to strengthen international standards that regulate financial market activity.

• - Regulated reintegration of markets.

A central idea is the development of a reintegration of the financial and productive economies, regulated by specific regulations that put the former at the service of the latter. It is about breaking with the exchange rates determined by capital movements and returning to rates determined by real commercial exchanges. Thus, "central banks [must have] more control over the transmission channels of monetary policy so that regulatory tasks are effective. Only by dispensing with irrational exuberance in the financial system of the future will it be possible to shake off the bubble behaviors that have forced the Bretton Woods system to be remade."[57]​ To do this, it is necessary to delimit the payment system, deposits, loans to consumers and small and medium-sized businesses. As well as reintroducing measures of structural separation between financial activities that are incompatible with each other, the mixture of which is one of the factors causing the 2008 crisis[58]​.

On the other hand, a specific and strong regulatory role must be established, which crosses and integrates the various highly interdependent sectors, but with separate regulation (stock market, banking, insurance). This function should correspond to the IMF or the Financial Stability Fund[59]​.

Finally, the Basel II standards as well as the International Financial Reporting Standards must be reviewed to avoid the systemic risk posed by their procyclical nature of accentuating economic shocks.[60]​.

• - Transparency.

Greater transparency of banks, financial establishments, international institutions, state organizations (central bank accounts, national budgets, foreign accounts, loan contracts, title modalities, performance indicators) is necessary and should be a basic directive of the international [29]​ and national financial and monetary systems. Specifically, banking secrecy should be eliminated.[61] According to Ibase, it is necessary to "remove the veil that covers the functioning of financial markets and institutions to make it accessible to ordinary citizens and civil society activists. There is absolutely nothing important about financial systems that cannot be understood and evaluated by adequately informed ordinary citizens."[6] On the other hand, "new financial citizenship rights must be established, based on the maximum transparency of financial entities and on a charter of information and financial education rights for those citizens."[62]​.

Specifically, "a true public audit of the internal rules of operation of the IFIs must be established, (...) redefine the relationships between institutions and between these institutions and their "surveillance authorities", establish a control system by parliaments and the population (...) [and] establish a system of long-term comparative analysis based on the permanent capitalization of experience.[23]​.

• - Financial models.

First of all, it is necessary to introduce limits on debt capacity so that banks do not depend excessively on debt, putting the entire economy at risk.[62]​.

On the other hand, it is also necessary:

• - Establish a model of ethical finance that prohibits distorting financial investments in raw materials, to avoid food or oil price bubbles, which have had so much social cost on citizens. In addition, new socially responsible investment criteria and rankings should be introduced that give priority to those investments and companies that carry out activities beneficial to society.

• - Eliminate tax havens and redirect their funds to meet the millennium goals. To achieve this, it is necessary to launch a battery of national and international initiatives that require a strong political push, but whose overall returns would be very positive. In this sense, the introduction of a progressive and coordinated tax regularization process until 2015 should be considered."[62]​.

According to Ibase, there are three basic alternative models that could replace the current formats and would meet the expressed requirements.

"1. A drastically reduced financial system in which credit and transaction services would be provided by public banks and private wealth markets would be closed. Speculation in the banking system would be prevented by strict specification of its functions.

2. A mixed financial system, in which the banking sector was absorbed by the State, but the securities and non-banking financial intermediation markets remained in private hands, although closely regulated and supervised.

3. The third model would preserve private ownership of banks and non-bank financial institutions as well as securities markets, but would drastically revamp the system of regulation and supervision. In particular, the current Basel strategy of carrying out prudential regulation based on microeconomic standards would be abandoned in favor of a systemic and macroeconomic criterion of stability.

All of these proposals, however, share a fundamental characteristic which is to restore the prominent role of public entities in the control of the financial system that guarantees that it plays a constructive role in the financing of productive activities and consumption while at the same time preserving an acceptable degree of stability of the system."[41]​.

Another possibility is the recovery of non-Western economic traditions for their generalization at an international level. For example, the prohibition of riba (usurious interest) in the Koran and other Islamic religious documents and its application in the modern context in which the growth of international trade, especially in southern countries, also implies the growth of exchanges between Islamic countries, have led Greco[63]​ to think about the possibility of creating an international organization capable of managing these exchanges. The generalization of inter-Islamic trade and, why not, between non-Islamic countries, following these principles, would help, among others, to greatly reduce the debt burden of underdeveloped countries.[64]​.

• - Actors, agents and financial products.

Here are other proposals for reviewing the economic and financial system:

• - benefit centralized, more transparent financial markets over individualized transaction markets, such as options or futures markets.

• - normalize and regulate the different types of securitization[65]​.

• - eliminate compensation schemes for intermediary agents, based on the total number of transactions, which encourage their maximization for the exclusive benefit of them.

• - regular evaluation of the action of intermediaries.

• - prohibition of financial options (stock options) that disrupt systems of solidarity towards employees.

• - reduce the voting rights of shareholders to those who are shareholders permanently after a few years.

• - New rules on equity between bank shareholders.

• - Legal limits to the fragmentation of financial risks.

• - Limits on conflicts of interest.

• - Reorient savings towards long-term sustainable investments[66]​.

• - Corporate governance.

• - First of all, company evaluation systems must be improved through accounting changes and new rating agencies: the market valuation of assets must be complemented to avoid the disappearance of solvent companies in times of financial panic.[62]​.

• - It is also necessary to correct "the deficiencies in corporate governance that have given rise to compensation schemes that benefit corporate managers to the detriment of other stakeholders, including shareholders."[67]​ One can, specifically, reform the remuneration systems of managers and limit business shields: their remunerations must be related to the creation of value in the medium term and their compensation linked to the causes of dismissal.[62]​.

• - The criminal liability of company executives must also be increased[66]​ and on the other hand, as an anti-speculative measure and to limit irresponsibility among shareholders, the voting rights of those shareholders must be reduced to those who are permanent shareholders after a few years.[66]​ as well as answers to the lack of independence of financial analysts.[23]​.

• - A proposal that concerns the structure of corporate governance is to develop an obligation of transparency of the company towards interested parties beyond the small circle of shareholders, and of their participation. In the case of banks at risk of bankruptcy, it may involve not only their public rescue but also exercising control through inspection regarding private responsibilities and the way in which private money is invested.[68]​.

In the international monetary system

Increased global coordination among central banks is necessary, according to some, "to control liquidity, expand their surveillance of asset inflation, and promote financial stability."[62]​.

• - Liquidity.

Gonçalves proposes the creation of a world monetary institution with the power to issue money and credit and thus control the level of international liquidity. To avoid domination of the financial market by the United States, it would be necessary at least, according to the same author, for the American Treasury to contribute to a global compensation fund, destined for the development of the countries of the South.[29]​.

Another measure is the creation by the IMF of a short-term liquidity line for emerging economies that suffer liquidity crises caused by systemic financial crises external to the economic policy of these countries.[69]​ On the other hand, the emergence of regional monetary funds would make it possible to have greater liquidity to facilitate sustainable development on a regional scale.[34]​.

• - Stabilization.

There are different proposals to stabilize the excess of randomness in the evolution of the value of currencies, as well as speculative attacks on some currencies:

Firstly, a fixed exchange system (a priori agreement on the value of currencies)[70]​ or flexible exchange system (a posteriori agreement) of exact parity or with a fluctuation threshold can be created between the main currencies (euro, yen, dollar, yuan). Another possibility is to initiate stabilization on a regional scale by creating regional currencies with a stable value between them, by creating a common unit of account to replace the current dominance of the dollar. Next, the rest of the world's currencies should be aligned with one of the strong currencies.[23]​[71]​ Another possibility is to multiply the issuance of the already existing Special Drawing Rights (SDR) and give them a greater role in the world monetary system, although according to Taddei that alone would not ensure stabilization[71]​.

On the other hand, a monetary clause could be introduced that would allow compensatory taxes to be established for countries that practice excessive devaluation of their currencies.[72]​.

The stabilization of the main currencies must also imply the stabilization of the cost of energy. Which implies the participation, along with the countries with the strongest currencies, of Russia and the Middle Eastern countries. Along these same lines, individual negotiable quotas in fossil energy could be created as a full-fledged currency[66].

• - Adjustment of the balance of payments.

An ad hoc institution, financed by the public sector and by a private sector capable of assuming a greater commitment to social responsibility, could support countries with difficulties in their capital balance. This would also imply a modification of the exchange system and a readjustment of the debt.[73]​.

In development finance

The main objective of financial regulation should be to promote full employment and development, according to IBase:[41]​ "Financial markets and institutions must be functional to the needs of development and production, promoting inclusion and open access to service products and savings of the general population. But this is not enough. It is also crucial that these functions are carried out without putting society at risk of serious turbulence and crisis. This means that regulation and supervision must be recognized for what they are: police work to control destructive tendencies incubated in the normal operation of financial markets. It is not a question of criminalizing financial activities. It must be recognized, however, that some activities present special threats to society and therefore become the object of special attention and monitoring. To ensure that the stability of the system is taken care of, financial regulation must be extended to all segments of the system. Instruments such as over-the-counter derivatives or entities such as “variable interest entities”, private equity funds and hedge funds must be. evaluated from the point of view of their impact on the general macro-stability of the system through macro-prudential regulation."[41]

From a reformist perspective, the financial system must serve the evolution of development without questioning the mechanism of conditionality. Some measures are:

• - Ensure access to commercial finance, especially to the poorest countries, for sectors and activities interrupted by the credit crunch.

• - Address liquidity problems through payment systems that include different currencies (see liquidity).

• - Establish an anti-crisis financial mechanism to provide large-scale, under conditionality, rapid disbursement funds to reduce the impact of the decline in exports from less developed countries[78]​.

Foreign debt has become an important limitation for the development of Southern countries. Debt increases the external vulnerability of these countries, which often orient their economic policies towards stabilizing their balance of payments, due to debt. It is necessary to create debt relief mechanisms, or deepen those that already exist.[29]​ To combat exclusion, there are, according to Dembinski, different proposals that range from periodic retirement of unpaid debts to arbitration procedures for relief of the most unbearable debt. The same author affirms the need to establish a relationship between the foreign debt of poor countries and the corruption of their leaders, in order to include the right of persecution as one of the conditions for debt renegotiation.[73]​ Another type of conditions for debt negotiation can be respect for economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR), the added value of exports and the reinforcement of the internal market to avoid new over-indebtedness.[79]​.

Attention should also be paid to what Ugarteche[80]​ calls the Highly Indebted Rich Countries (PRAE). Loans destined for these countries, which generate significant volumes of debt, should also be conditional on the reorganization of their economies and the achievement of financial order.

At local level

"There are various experiences and innovations at a microeconomic or local scale that try to increase the autonomy of the various actors, especially in relation to the financial system, which they can hardly influence: complementary currencies and microfinance, the principle of sharing profits and losses between companies and financiers"[101]​.

The participation of all actors involved in the economic inclusion processes that result from the development of some financial fund projects causes beneficial individual and collective effects on the community concerned. An example is the Regional Fund for Social Innovation (Fonds régional pour l'innovation sociale) of Nord Pas-de-Calais in France[103]​.

The network structuring of financial institutions at the local level can constitute another entry point for the generalization of alternative financial models to the entire society. Thus, in the specific case of Brazil, according to Grosso[104]​ it would be possible to structure small, financially sustainable institutions, relying on the scarce resources of the community, as long as these entities do not act in isolation but rather in consortia of microfinance entities. Another author[105] states that it is necessary to develop and share existing decentralized financial experiences such as cooperatives or mutual societies, credit unions, rural savings banks and self-managed and solidarity credit systems, to extract common lessons and facilitate the structuring of alternative financial models to the liberal model. These types of actions could be complemented from a political point of view with the implementation of democratic and solidarity regulatory mechanisms that establish surveillance against the risks of instrumentalization of solidarity economy initiatives by local and state governments, and international institutions.[106]​.

Another initiative in the field of decentralized finance is the establishment of "native clubs" among Mexican migrants emigrating to the United States. It is about "channeling the use of remittances towards common welfare projects that improve the living conditions of the community. In the short and medium term the objectives are to satisfy the basic needs of infrastructure, health and education services; and in the long term, launch productive projects that generate employment and capitalize the communities." These clubs are at the same time generators of social networks of cooperation and community work both in the communities of origin and among migrant communities in the country of destination.[107]​.

Finally, it is also necessary to pressure international and continental institutions (United Nations, WTO, IMF, World Bank, ILO) to review their policies and integrate the solidarity economy as an essential component of sustainable development, as well as establish an international lobby before the UNDP so that the methodology and human development indicators incorporate the issues of the solidarity economy.[108]​.

• - Rethinking Finance. Alternative Voices for a New Financial Architecture.

• - Bretton Woods Project.

• - Forum for a New World Governance.

• - Towards sustainable finance. A workshop of the Socio-Solidarity Economy Pole (PSES - ALOE).

• - Institut de recherche et de débat sur la gouvernance Archived December 25, 2009 at the Wayback Machine.

• - New Economics Foundation.

• - New Rules of Global Finance.

• - Journal of Financial Market Law.

• - The Global Financial Crisis.

Globalization of finance

According to Dembinski,[3]​ financial globalization involves the progressive fusion of national financial systems into an emerging global system. This system consists of two levels: a global financial market that provides financing to the largest companies on a global scale, and the sum of funds around the world that constitute the local level, and that channel more and more savings and cash to the first level. The author points out that it is not certain, on the one hand, that this stratification is efficient from an economic perspective, while on the other it limits the ability of small and medium-sized companies to access financing.

Dembinski also points out that the financial system has become the osatura of the economy and contemporary society, and increasingly it is the degree of solvency that determines what the rights of people, communities or countries are or can be.

Financial crisis and global agenda

This central character of finance with respect to the economy, and of the economy with respect to social organization, causes some authors[4]​ to place the crisis of the financial system in the framework of a generalized systemic crisis that affects the entire economy, society and the planet, and which is manifested by signs such as poverty and inequality (between countries and within each country), international trade governed by unfair rules that benefit only a few, a predatory energy model that depletes sources due to excess demand, and climate change as a consequence of unsustainable development and consumption models. Faced with all this, it is pointed out that a refoundation of the financial system is necessary but insufficient: what is needed is a global agenda on a world scale that leads to a paradigm shift, and of which the refoundation of the global financial system is a part along with other transformations that lead to "[a model] of different globalization that is not only guided by principles of profitability, but also by justice, solidarity and responsibility towards citizens." (see the proposals section).

Contenido

El sistema financiero de la primera década del siglo es el fruto de cuatro décadas de liberalización financiera, iniciado en los primeros años 1970, y que se aceleró como consecuencia indirecta de algunos acontecimientos históricos, especialmente con el desmantelamiento del bloque comunista a partir de 1989. Según Ibase[5]​ se trata de un proceso doble que tiene lugar paralelamente en las escalas nacional e internacional.

"Por un lado, la liberalización financiera nacional está centrada en la desregulación de mercados financieros nacionales y en la consiguiente modificación de los instrumentos de política económica para adaptarse a las nuevas reglas. (...) La idea que los mercados financieros totalmente libres podrían ser una amenaza fue substituida por la ideología de que los mercados no se equivocan".[6]​ (...)"Cuando un país permite la libre entrada y salida del capital financiero está enviando señales a los dueños de las riquezas locales que ahora tienen una opción entre someterse a las leyes nacionales o trasladar sus operaciones a un ambiente más amistoso. Esto significa que si el gobierno de un país decide reducir la tasa de interés para estimular el crecimiento y el empleo en su economía, los dueños del capital financiero pueden optar por llevarse su riqueza a otro país más atractivo, forzando al gobierno a revertir su política económica. (...) De hecho, no es solo la libre elección de una política monetaria lo que se ve afectado. La decisión de imponer impuestos progresivos, por ejemplo, tendrá que enfrentar la reacción hostil de los inversores con respecto a dicha política. Si la política les parece inaceptable pueden simplemente huir con su capital a otro país. Esto puede ocurrir con cualquier política que no sea del agrado de inversores y rentistas. (...) La mayor parte del tiempo no es necesario que la fuga de capitales ocurra realmente. La mera amenaza de iniciar un episodio de fuga de capitales intimida lo suficiente a los gobiernos nacionales como para hacerlos reconsiderar su posición."[6]​.

"Por otro lado, la liberalización financiera internacional (...) consiste en desmantelar los controles de capital para aumentar la libertad con la cual el capital financiero puede moverse a través de las fronteras nacionales". Durante la segunda década de los años 1990, "El desmantelamiento de los controles de capital expuso a aquellos países que los habían implementado a una creciente volatilidad y a crisis financieras recurrentes, entre otros efectos devastadores, sin un aumento perceptible en términos de desarrollo económico. (...) La liberalización, por lo tanto, le abrió las puertas al capital financiero, pero no al capital productivo. El capital financiero no busca oportunidades de convertirse en capital productivo sino que especula con las diferencias entre valores productivos. (...) Cuando la liquidez es abundante en los mercados financieros internacionales, como actualmente, hay un exceso de capital financiero en busca de oportunidades en todo el mundo, sobrevaluando el tipo de cambio en los países en vías de desarrollo, dificultando sus exportaciones e incluso amenazando sus niveles internos de producción frente a la competencia de las importaciones baratas".[6]​.

The national scale and financial governance

According to Germain,[7]​ there are two elements of resistance at the national level against the domination of the global nature of financial governance, these are firstly an "outward-oriented self-interest" according to which governments favor the establishment of international rules that favor their own interests and those of the main financial institutions of their country. The second element is an "inward-oriented self-interest" according to which a country's governments and financial institutions resist the imposition of international norms and rules that conflict with existing national practices. Added to these two elements is the prerogative of issuing currency, the material basis of the financial system.

Local financial governance

At the local level, true financial governance systems in which different actors intervene do not yet exist in a widespread manner. Thus, at least in Africa, and according to Yatta[8]​, local communities evolve in a difficult context characterized by the gap between the new powers transferred by decentralization and the amounts allocated in local budgets. Participatory budgets") are experiences developed especially at a local level throughout the world, in which participatory democracy has been developed as a system for preparing the budgets of the entities concerned.

• - Financialization (economic): According to Calame.[9]​ The causes of the financial crisis must be sought in financialization"), that is, in the process of domination, on an international scale, of the market of financial flows, over the market of exchanges of real products, as a result of a much greater economic weight of the former over the latter in the context of an inseparable market. Financialization thus benefits from the technological innovations of recent years (especially the Internet) that have led to an acceleration of transaction volume.

• - Financialization of mentalities: according to Dembinski[10]​ the uninterrupted growth of the economy in the second half of the century and the beginning of the century has made it a fundamental constituent element of societies, as well as finance the central aspect of the economy. Thus, on the one hand, the possession of goods and the purchasing power determine power and the risk of social exclusion and govern people's destinies. On the other hand, in an open and mobile society, finance transforms interpersonal trust into pseudotrust in institutions guaranteed by the liquidity of the markets.

• - Externalization of risk: According to Chomsky[11]​ the system does not satisfactorily assume the costs that an exchange between two agents can cause to a third party, including society as a whole or the environment. This de-responsibility results in a greater probability of the appearance of serious and periodic financial crises. Ignoring the externalities of transactions implies, according to the author, that "the public sector assumes costs and risks while the benefit is privatized"[12]​.

• - Extraterritoriality: the exponential increase in the volume of foreign exchange reserves is a financial innovation after the Second World War, and one of the characteristics of the economic and social interdependence that leads to intensifying globalization.

• - Capital flows and explosion of financial transactions: international debt, direct investments as well as transfers of all types, overall, exceed commercial transactions in volume. The explosion of financial transactions has given rise to the dependence of Western societies on finance. This means that they are especially sensitive to variations in the financial system. Two other financial innovations have accompanied this transformation: a) the proportional increase in services in the productive system in recent decades, corresponding to an increase in the use of parallel intangible products (marketing, advertising, transportation). b) the explosion of pension funds fuels significant demand and contributes to increasing the volume of financial operations.

• - Confusion and fusion between currency and finance: between the liquid asset, the best example of which is the banknote, and the obligation issued by a government, there is a gradation of products that makes it impossible to establish a clear demarcation between currency and finance. As a consequence, the boundaries between the public and private sectors are also blurred.

• - Growing role of banking regulations: given the complexity of financial activity, central banks have acquired an exceptional role as supervisors of financial regulation.

• - Markets and governments: The establishment of flexible exchange rates after the decade that followed the suspension of the convertibility of the dollar into gold, has been accompanied by a progressive development of the exchange market. As a consequence, the options and decisions of governments regarding economic policy have been directly exposed to the verdict of private operators.,[13]​.

• - Invention of short-term profit mechanisms: These mechanisms favor speculative agents and leave the value of real production, and the labor market that accompanies it, as well as indirectly to the public economy, at the whim of market fluctuations, which in the absence of sufficient regulatory mechanisms suffer enormously as a consequence of financial crises.[14]​.

"The 2008 financial crisis was unleashed directly due to the collapse of the real estate bubble in the United States in 2006, which caused approximately October 2007 the so-called subprime mortgage crisis. The repercussions of the mortgage crisis began to manifest themselves in an extremely serious way since the beginning of 2008, first infecting the American financial system, and then the international one, resulting in a deep liquidity crisis, and indirectly causing other economic phenomena, such as a global food crisis "World food crisis (2007-2008)"), different stock market crashes (such as the stock market crisis of January 2008 and the global stock market crisis of October 2008) and, overall, an economic crisis on an international scale".[15]

Among the fundamental causes of the crisis it is worth highlighting, according to Rozo,[16]​ a "decoupling" between the real economy and the monetary economy. The author states that financial markets have become "autonomous investment fields or "financial containers", in which the excess liquidity that exists in the real economy is parked. These containers become speculation in currencies, works of art, precious metals, real estate, company shares and more recently even oil and food. Evidently, these containers have limits and when they reach them they cause the explosion of speculative bubbles."

The accumulation of these assets has been facilitated by neoliberal globalization, a high interdependence and a weak[17]​ and permissive global regulation (see Basel II) that has promoted the increase in risk and has not been able to put a stop to the multiplication, in the last decade, of complex financial products, which superimpose debts and loans on top of each other and that, following a greedy logic of increasing profits without limit, grant confidence to actors of dubious financial credibility, in addition to privileging the short term. The explosion of the global real estate bubble (Subprime mortgage crisis), the result of years of speculative frenzy in this sector, has been the trigger for the financial crisis.

The complex and catastrophic consequences of this crisis seem to agree with authors who, like Delors,[18]​ consider that the self-regulation of markets is impossible or imperfect and that with globalization financial distortions end up affecting all economies and societies on a global scale. Another current goes further and considers that the entire capitalist model is already unsalvageable. For example, D'Escoto[19] states that we are facing a "systematic crisis" produced by a system "lacking ethics" that "can no longer take it anymore." According to the president of the UN General Assembly, "capitalism carries within itself the gene of self-destruction."

The 2008 financial crisis took place in historically industrialized countries but was preceded, in the 1990s, by financial crises in emerging countries, especially in Asia and Latin America. Like the 2008 crisis, it was a liquidity crisis, the result of an alteration in financial market conditions with no causal connection to the real economy.

As a way out of the crisis, the long trillion dollars agreed for the financial stimulus of the international economy is more than what was managed in the previous debates and is, without a doubt, the largest concerted fiscal plan in history.[20] Many analysts foresee a recovery in economic growth and therefore an exit from the crisis, in the majority of affected countries, around 2010.

Las instituciones internacionales con peso mayor en las finanzas mundiales son el Fondo Monetario Internacional, el Banco Mundial, la Organización Mundial del Comercio y el G7, reconvertido recientemente en G20.

En otro lugar, no por ello menos importante, se sitúan los organismos reguladores, es decir aquellos cuya función exclusiva es la producción de normas sobre la organización de la finanza y la vigilancia sobre su cumplimiento, sin intervenir directamente en el mercado financiero.

Según sus críticos, la gobernanza de todas estas instituciones se caracteriza por su poco nivel de democracia[21]​ y por ser "símbolos de una gobernanza mundial considerada ilegítima".[22]​ Concretamente, el mundo en vías de desarrollo está subrepresentado, a pesar de la importante reforma que tuvo lugar con posterioridad a la crisis financiera de 2008 y que consistió en la inclusión de varios países emergentes en el G7, reconvertido en G20. Este flagrante "déficit democrático", en palabras de Ibase[6]​ "no impide que [estas instituciones] tomen decisiones que afectan profundamente la vida y el bienestar de las sociedades excluidas de las negociaciones". Por otro lado sus acciones han sido consideradas ineficaces, contraproducentes y catastróficas, especialmente desde la perspectiva de las políticas sociales de los países en desarrollo."[23]​.

Es importante constatar también la jerarquía que se establece entre estas instituciones en el marco de la gobernanza mundial. Concretamente, la independencia del FMI, el BM y la OMC respecto de la tutela de las Naciones Unidas resulta en un equilibrio de poder favorable a aquellos primeros[24]​ y a sus políticas neoliberales, y convierte a la ONU en un actor con influencia secundaria o simplemente testimonial, en la promoción del desarrollo internacional.

International financial institutions (IFI)

• - The International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The International Monetary Fund was defined by the Bretton Woods Conference at the end of World War II with the objective of regulating the fixed exchange monetary system. However, the abandonment of this system in the 1970s led to the evolution of the mission of this institution. Today it continues to regulate the financial system while helping developing countries by providing funds to overcome eventual crises due to deficits in their balance of payments.

These credits, often essential for the countries in question, have been offered in exchange for certain conditionalities (within the framework of the so-called structural adjustment policies) whose objective was to balance the balance of payments, although their high social cost has often prevented these countries from escaping the spiral of underdevelopment, or has even helped to aggravate it.

The IMF's voting system is based on the size of member countries' capital investments. Thus, the members of the G7 control 45% of the voting power, of which the United States controls 17% which gives them de facto veto power. Thus, the IMF has been criticized for its stance in defense of the interests of Western countries and specifically the United States. According to Bello, this was the case when Japan, to prevent the 1997 financial crisis, proposed the creation of an Asian Monetary Fund, which other countries in the region hailed as a good initiative. However, the IMF and the United States were fiercely opposed to this.[25]​.

According to Gonçalves[26]​ "historical experience shows that the programs directed by the IMF tend to lead developing countries towards a path of instability and crisis. Taken together, [these] crises go beyond the economic dimension, producing social problems and political and institutional ruptures in developing countries."

After the G-20 London Summit in April 2009, it was agreed to strengthen the IMF, by injecting a huge amount of funds to act as a lender of last resort, and it was also given a central role in overseeing the financial system alongside the new Financial Stability Board. At the same time, the IMF was tasked with increasing its effectiveness and transparency, better representing developing countries, and ending the leonine conditionalities that accompanied its credits.[27]​.

• - The World Bank (WB).

The World Bank is the "twin" institution of the IMF, also born at the Bretton Woods Conference, with the objective of reducing poverty through low-interest loans, interest-free credit at the banking level and economic support for developing countries. It was initially created in order to assist European reconstruction during the post-war period, later expanding its functions in the field of development and evolving its organization into what is today known as the World Bank Group, made up of the following agencies: International Bank for Reconstruction and Development; International Development Association; International Finance Corporation; Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency; International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes.

The value of the vote in the World Bank is also organized through capital subscriptions that are proportional to the wealth of each country represented. Thus, the United States controls 16.39% of the voting power, Japan 7.86%, Germany 4.49%, France, the United Kingdom and Italy 4.30%, etc.

The autonomy of the Bretton Woods institutions has been given to them since their foundation. These are considered "specialized agencies" according to the Charter of the United Nations (UN) of 1945 and the nature of their relationship with the UN, stipulated in the respective relationship agreements, affirms the autonomy of the IFIs in matters within their competence. This organizational independence of these institutions and their governance favorable to the most industrialized countries has had enormous consequences for economic policy and for the social and economic development of the planet, especially in developing countries.[28] Likewise, it also largely prevented the institutions from assuming the tasks for which they were created in the beginning: ensuring the stability of the major currencies, and facilitating post-war reconstruction. Its mandate was limited from the beginning by the United States, which did not accept Keynes's proposals to establish a world monetary system.[23] Specifically, the IMF lost the function of stabilizing the exchange rate system after 1971[29].

• - Other international financial institutions.

Among the financial institutions that operate at an international level, regional development banks (Inter-American Development Bank; Asian Development Bank; African Development Bank; European Bank for Reconstruction and Development; etc.), bilateral development banks such as the Dutch Development Finance Company, and other regional financial institutions such as the European Investment Bank; Black Sea Development Bank; Islamic Development Bank; etc.).

Other institutions with influence in the financial system

• - The World Trade Organization (WTO).

The WTO oversees international trade agreements by defining the rules of trade between member states. The WTO succeeded the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1995, which in turn was founded in 1947. THE fundamental purpose of the WTO in practice has been to reduce or completely eliminate international barriers to trade (financial liberalization process).

Other objectives of the WTO, as a forum for multilateral trade negotiations, are:

• - Manage commercial dispute settlement procedures (disputes between countries).

• - Supervise commercial policies.

• - Coordinate economic policies to develop demand and employment, especially in lower-income countries.[30]​.

• - Cooperate with the World Bank and the IMF with the aim of achieving greater coherence between economic and trade policy on a global scale.

Two recently created and fundamentally important agreements developed and administered by the WTO are: the General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS); and the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The first opens up to private capital, on a global scale, services until then considered public in many countries, such as education and health. The second involves the intervention of the WTO in the field of the definition of property.

The formal voting system in the WTO is universal suffrage per member country (one country, one vote). However, a common practice (and on the other hand one of the aspects of the WTO most criticized by developing countries and social movements) is early decision-making between the most powerful countries (the so-called "green room" negotiations)[31]​

[32]​ and indirectly imposed on other countries.

• - The G20.

The Group of 20, or G-20, is a group of countries formed in 1999 by the eight most industrialized countries (G-8), eleven newly industrialized countries from all regions of the world, and the European Union as a bloc.

On the one hand, it is argued that the G20 is more representative than the G8, since it represents 70% of the world population. Thus, "the G-20 Summit has been the first in which large emerging economies such as China, Brazil, India or Mexico sit at the table on equal terms with the most powerful"[27]​.

But on the other hand, critics argue that the G20 does not have the right to make decisions that concern everyone because it represents a group of states chosen at random. Specifically, the poorest countries or regions are not represented in it. The G20 does not have a Charter and its discussions are not made public, which makes it a non-democratic institution."[33]​[34]​.

Regulatory bodies

Regulatory bodies (...) are associations of administrative authorities in the financial sector. They have in common their technical nature: they are agencies specialized in the regulation and supervision of the financial market.

The work of these regulatory bodies is aimed, more than at creating a uniform Law, at establishing basic principles, professional criteria, that promote the reform of the different national regulations.

The resolutions and technical reports of the international financial regulation and control organizations are transferred through the financial supervisors to the regional forums. In these forums, agreements are adopted and decisions are approved aimed at the application of international criteria in their territories. Among these regional forums, the one that forms the European Union stands out. Many of its directives and regulations on financial matters are a faithful reflection of the agreements adopted internationally. The lack of democratic legitimacy of these organizations to dictate international standards applicable in domestic law has been criticized. It is a fact that national parliaments become mere recipients of the decisions adopted by these organizations, thus recognizing their technical inability to organize the financial market.

These associations contribute with their work to the standardization of financial contracts, reducing the cost of transactions and increasing liquidity in the markets. Many of the products used in the subprime crisis lacked this standardization, making their risks difficult to measure and, ultimately, this lack of clarity has damaged their liquidity."[35]

The Financial Stability Forum was created in 1999 to promote international financial stability through greater exchange of information and cooperation in financial supervision and market surveillance. Objectives of this institution are also the improvement of the functioning of markets and the reduction of systemic risk.

It is made up of senior representatives of international financial institutions, international groups of regulators and supervisors, expert committees of central banks and national authorities in charge of financial stability. The original members were the G-7, plus five other countries that represent important financial centers.

The FEF is an institution created as a consequence of the financial crises of the 1990s, with the special mission of avoiding or mitigating the effects of future crises. Its recommendation reports to the G-7 have been considered excellent, although the difficulties in its implementation have been criticized.[36]​.

At the G-20 London Summit in April 2009 it was decided to create a successor to the FEF, the Financial Stability Board (FSB). The CEF includes the previous members of the FEF and admits the rest of the G20 countries, Spain and the European Commission as new members.

"La regulación internacional de los mercados financieros está en proceso de construcción. La globalización y financialización de la vida económica no han venido acompañadas de un régimen internacional de las finanzas. Han sido los técnicos y los profesionales quienes han reaccionado, creando comités y asociaciones para adoptar acuerdos tendentes a dar seguridad a las transacciones.

La reciente crisis subprime ha puesto de relieve las debilidades del sistema, como la falta de control de los productos financieros más complejos, los conflictos de interés que plantean algunos sistemas de remuneración de los intermediarios o la necesidad de regular a las agencias de rating y a otros guardianes del mercado. Las primeras respuestas vienen de nuevo de los comités profesionales. Optan por la prudencia, evitando una sobrerreacción ante los efectos de la crisis."[39]​.

• - Características de la regulación.

"La perfección de los contratos, sus sistemas de garantías y la ejecución de los mismos tienen lugar a través de sistemas centralizados y encadenados, cuya naturaleza jurídica está todavía por determinar. En esta forma de regular el mercado financiero, el poder se desplaza de los Tribunales que aplican el Derecho privado a los organismos profesionales y firmas globales de abogados, y sistemas de arbitraje internacional, que aplican los complejos acuerdos y desarrollos técnicos elaborados por los supervisores y la industria financiera.".

La principal debilidad de esta forma de regular y aplicar las normas es su déficit democrático. Las normas se adoptan y aplican por sujetos privados en defensa de sus propios intereses corporativos. Para evitar este problema de falta de legitimación, se asumen compromisos protectores de los intereses generales, como el de consulta pública de todas las iniciativas relativas a la regulación del mercado financiero. Es el caso en la Unión Europea con el llamado sistema Lamfalussy.[39]​.

• - Naturaleza de la regulación.

"Los acuerdos de los organismos internacionales de regulación financiera no son fuente del Derecho. Ni sus firmantes actúan en representación de los Estados. No parece necesario insistir en que los bancos centrales, las comisiones de valores, los supervisores de seguros o las asociaciones de bancos de inversión, carecen de poder para concluir verdaderos acuerdos internacionales. Este tipo de acuerdos constituye una de las expresiones más relevantes de soft law, es decir, de estándares y normas de conducta profesionales creados al margen de los parlamentos de los Estados nacionales. Son reglas técnicas que sin tener la naturaleza de ley tienen sin embargo el efecto de regular las finanzas internacionales. Forman parte de la nueva lex mercatoria de las finanzas internacionales, surgida de los operadores globales. Dan respuesta uniforme a las necesidades que plantea el mercado financiero en una economía globalizada. Los estándares proliferan y tienen éxito por su pragmatismo. Al fin y al cabo, dan solución a los problemas que plantean las finanzas internacionales.

Son acuerdos que gozan de un elevado rigor técnico. El detalle de la regulación es en gran medida el resultado del asesoramiento que prestan las grandes firmas abogados anglosajonas a los bancos de inversión y demás operadores globales. Ninguna operación financiera internacional de cierto volumen se realiza sin su participación. Han colonizado el Derecho financiero global Ofertas públicas en sus diversas modalidades, fusiones y adquisiciones, y tantas otras operaciones financieras son diseñadas con la participación de estas firmas globales. Su crecimiento ha sido paralelo al desarrollo de los mercados financieros. Los Estados nacionales no han sabido regular y ordenar los nuevos mercados e instrumentos financieros, y ocupando su lugar las firmas globales han pasado a actuar de hecho como verdaderos reguladores de los mercados financieros internacionales. Representan la cultura de la élite legal. Del mismo modo que Napoleón colonizó Europa con sus códigos, las grandes firmas de abogados pueden estar llevando a cabo una nueva forma de neo-colonialismo."[39]​.

• - Papel de la autoregulación.

"Los Estados y los organismos internacionales asumen como propios los estándares y las mejores prácticas de la industria financiera. De este modo, mediante una autorregulación regulada se transforma la regla privada en norma pública.

La autorregulación adopta diversas modalidades. Comprende desde los códigos de conducta de la industria, a reglas técnicas o de mejores prácticas profesionales. Un ejemplo de autorregulación regulada es el que se da en la Unión Europea. En la Unión Europea son frecuentes las remisiones a las “prácticas de mercado aceptadas”, para delimitar la conducta que deben mantener en el mercado los intermediarios y operadores.

Desde el punto de vista de la eficiencia de la regulación y de su adaptación a las cambiantes condiciones del mercado, resulta inadecuado fijar en la norma legal la conducta que los operadores deben mantener en el mercado. Se opta por reconocer las prácticas aceptadas en el mercado como criterio delimitador de la actuación que se debe mantener. Dichas prácticas deben ser aceptadas por el regulador atendiendo al mejor funcionamiento del mercado. Para determinar las prácticas que van a resultar exceptuadas del abuso de mercado, hay que tener en cuenta el punto de vista de todos los participantes en el mercado, incluidos los consumidores.20 No puede admitirse que la industria, una de las partes de la relación, imponga su conducta a la otra, es decir, a los consumidores, como parte más vulnerable."[39]​.

The Basel Accords

• - Basel I Agreement.

This set of recommendations published in 1988 "was a narrowly targeted measure aimed at a small group of internationally active banks competing in the same markets, to eliminate unfair competitive advantages resulting from discrepancies related to regulatory regimes." This agreement "was simple and established that national supervisors should require internationally active banks to maintain a net worth (equity capital) in the proportion of 8% of their assets considered high risk (the risk was determined by the committee itself, and added to the annex to the agreement)."

"Although Basel I was created to be applied to the richest countries, it became the standard for all banks in (almost) all countries (...) By the mid-1990s, more than 120 countries had adhered to Basel I or intended to do so after a certain transition period. (...) However, the need for a profound modification of Basel I was recognized to create appropriate regulations to be adopted by a large number of countries. countries"[6].

• - Basel II Agreement.

The purpose of this agreement, initially published in 2004, is "the creation of an international standard that serves as a reference for banking regulators, in order to establish the necessary capital requirements, to ensure the protection of entities against financial and operational risks."[40]​.

"The Basel II agreement is very complex. In addition to determining differentiated capital requirements for different classes of banks, it also directs the action of supervisors and defines access to information requirements. Basel II depends on three pillars: risk-based capital ratios, supervision and market discipline. The most important section of the new text refers to capital requirements. (...) [T]he supervisors perform more functions. They evaluate the risk rating, management systems, and administrative structure of the bank to implement the bank's strategy. risk and to manage those risks that have not been explicitly addressed in the new agreement, such as liquidity risks."[6]​.

Among the criticisms of Basel II, according to Ibase,[6][41]​ it is worth highlighting:

• - The Agreement includes what are considered best practices developed by private banks to measure and manage risks. These practices are at the heart of the failed methods used to prepare the basis for the 2008 financial crisis, which shows the erroneous strategy and failure of the agreement even before it was adopted globally.

• - Despite everything, the possible far-reaching consequences beyond the search for financial stability: Countries are expected to accept and put these rules into practice, even when their contribution to the elaboration of the agreement was not required. Participation was restricted to the wealthiest members of rich countries.

• - The application may lead to increased financial instability, as regulatory capital requirements are exposed to greater risk.

Failure to adapt to historical changes

"For 50 years, International Financial Institutions have gone through a long economic and political history. The context in which they work and their true role have evolved radically without their mandate and mode of operation having evolved in parallel. The IFIs have maintained a basically unchanged structure despite the radical evolution of their environment."[23]​.

Ineffective, counterproductive, and selective remedies

The IFIs have promoted counterproductive remedies: the most widespread recipe to combat both poverty (World Bank) and financial crises (IMF) has been the liberalization of markets, and in practice this has favored, in most cases, speculative financial investments instead of productive investments. As an example, we can cite Malaysia, a country that has suffered to a much lesser extent the consequences of the Asian financial crisis in 1997, for not having followed the recipe of liberalization and applying an interventionist policy instead.[34]​.

Control of the world economy for the benefit of a few

"Critics argue that the IMF and the World Bank have played a fundamental role in the formation and consolidation of the neoliberal order. Through the imposition of structural adjustment programs, they have been the initiators of catastrophic social policies for the population: privatization of healthcare, privatization of education, privatization of public services, forced liberalization of trade, all in perfect accordance with trade policy and the liberal rules of the WTO."

"The IMF and the WB are institutions that have obeyed the interests of the most developed countries and whose main objective has been, among others, the coverage of debt interests, the submission of all countries to the legal rules of deregulation while ensuring the liberalization of capital movements, the resignation of public powers from any form of democratic control of the national economy. Together with the WTO they have been, in essence, the institutional guardians of private interests and political-legal pillars of the world liberal system. It has been the new form of colonialism: the domination of the powerful has manifested itself and has hidden under decision-making within multilateral economic, financial and commercial organizations".[31]

Democratic and transparency deficit

Among financial institutions, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are the most powerful in the world. The liberalization of markets has progressively reduced the ability of states to maneuver in their own economic policy. In compensation, this diminishing authority has not been replaced by democratic power on a multilateral scale. The International Financial Institutions (IFI) present a "democratic deficit" of the institutions that exercise global governance that increasingly affects the planetary population they supposedly represent.[6]​.

On the other hand, the IFIs' accountability mechanisms are non-existent or inadequate. At the state level they are the governments that are accountable to the legislative powers, and at the international level they are the intergovernmental organizations that report to intergovernmental councils made up of representatives of the governments.

Although legislative authority and practices vary in each country, the extent of democratic oversight by national legislative powers over the World Bank and the IMF is weak, according to a survey carried out by several international civil society actors.[42] Legislators, as well as the citizens they represent, have little influence and are barely consulted on issues relating to the World Bank and the IMF. Here are some of the main conclusions of the survey:.

• - In most cases, legislative representatives do not participate in the selection of senior national officials of the Bretton Woods institutions.

• - Priorities and decision-making at the national level are, in practice, the responsibility of the executive branch. Thus, the administrator of the World Bank and the corresponding IMF can participate to different degrees in the decision-making.

• - The establishment of priorities and decision-making at the level of the constituencies of several countries take place in a punctual and non-transparent manner.

• - Annual reports on government activities in the Bretton Woods institutions are not subject to any analysis by legislators.

• - The participation of civil society in the activities of the BWI is essentially limited to special consultations on the occasion of the spring or autumn meetings of these institutions.

• - Governments do not carry out independent audits of their financial obligations towards BWIs.

• - Parliamentarians have limited access to the IBW, due to their restrictive policies regarding access to information.[42]​.

Transparency and democracy must also reach regulatory bodies such as the Basel Committee, among others. This requires, according to IBase, a first effort by civil society to train itself, disseminate information and put pressure on governments in that direction to take a more efficient and responsible stance.[6]​.

Complexity

Instead of centralized and coherent regulation resulting from coordinated action between financial institutions, there is a multitude of laws, standards, treaties, institutions and agreements that are often poorly coordinated between them. "The subdivision of the system into three sectors: banking, securities and insurance, no longer corresponds to the complex reality of international financial markets. The result of this tripartite agreement, combined with the existence of international organizations with overlapping responsibilities, is an enormously complicated network of institutions and committees with no obvious logic or structure"[43]​.

Institutional limitations

"There is neither a Central Bank nor a financial supervision entity with global powers (...). The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been facing its own crisis of identity and legitimacy; and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) is a mere association of national Central Banks with important but very limited functions. (...)[44]​.

On the other hand, in the face of the 2008 financial crisis, the seriousness of the fact of the United Nations' lack of reaction capacity has been highlighted.

Failure to comply with international law

The International Financial Institutions (IFI) have also been criticized for non-compliance with international law, during the time that they openly supported, among others, the racist criminal regime of apartheid in South Africa,[31]​ and the Argentine, Chilean, and Indonesian dictatorships... all with a heavy burden of crimes against humanity: mass torture, rapes, executions, disappearances...

"Corporate governance is the set of processes, habits, policies, laws and institutions that determine the way in which a corporation or company is directed, administered or controlled. Corporate governance also includes the relationships between the various actors involved and the objectives for which the company is governed. The most important actors are the shareholder-members, the management team and the management team. Other actors are employees, customers, creditors, suppliers, regulators, and others in general.

Corporate governance is multi-faceted. Some aspects are: the accountability of individuals related to the company, economic efficiency from the perspective of shareholders as well as the different shareholder cultures around the world.

Since 2001, there has been renewed interest in the corporate governance practices of modern corporations, especially due to the collapse of a number of large US companies such as Enron and MCI Inc."[46]

• - Corporate governance of banking entities.

The financial governance process of banking entities has four fundamental actors:

• - The board of directors.

• - The verification committee.

• - The external verifier.

• - The management (including financial and non-financial managers of the company).

These actors must consider their roles and responsibilities as well as their interaction and how they work together. The quality of financial and company information is determined by the effectiveness of the collaboration between these actors.[47]​.

Some solidarity finance practices have been developed for decades as tools to combat poverty, exclusion and unemployment. Although not all initiatives that are defined as solidarity finance have these social objectives as a priority in practice. "Solidarity finance's mission is to use financial tools for equitable and sustainable development. Its long-term vision is to increase social capital. Its actors are multiple and have different techniques, behaviors and modes of action, but together they give rise to the emergence of a specific identity of solidarity finance. Its competencies are the ability to think globally, to unite individuals and actors around a financial activity, to know the needs of individual economic actors and communities, whatever their economic and social conditions. The function of the solidarity financier consists of financing activities and people within the framework of a general interest, guaranteeing compliance with social capital. Solidarity finance acts in an environment of poverty, exclusion or difficulty in accessing financial services."[48]​.

Because there are no widespread solidarity finance practices on a global scale, it is not yet possible to talk about what global governance of solidarity finance would look like. If at the local level it is social ties and social capital that ensure effective social finance, at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre the idea of creating a "solidarity World Bank" was launched: it was not an alternative copy of the World Bank but rather "linking existing experiences, confronting them, and making alliances between them to increase scale. But to create a network between actors of a solidarity finance, a framework is required that articulates four components: the collection of savings solidarity along with the mobilization of public and private funds (especially in Northern countries), the transfer of credit through financial "tools" (investment funds, guarantee funds), banking intermediation in developing countries and finally the implementation of local savings and/or credit experiences"[49]​.

Las posturas oficiales ante la crisis financiera de 2008 determinan en gran medida la visión de las instituciones internacionales, de los estados y de otros actores sobre el tipo de gobernanza financiera necesaria en el futuro. IBase[41]​ considera que según la visión oficial "el sistema es bueno y puede mejorarse con el ajuste de algunas tuercas y tornillos (...) Así el Foro de Estabilidad Financiera propone normas más estrictas para conducir a las agencias de calificación crediticia, pero no su inhabilitación. El Comité de Basilea considera elevar los coeficientes de capital además de perfeccionar las fórmulas usadas para calcular esos coeficientes de modo que se contemplen los problemas de liquidez, etc."[41]​.

"En círculos oficiales funcionarán dos procesos paralelos a lo largo de los próximos meses o años. Uno procurará medidas y programas para mitigar los efectos de la crisis financiera y de la recesión en la economía real. Esto tendrá lugar a nivel nacional y en algunos casos sobre una base regional. (...) El otro procurará diseñar una nueva arquitectura financiera. Este proceso multilateral se inició el 15 de noviembre en Washington y continuará durante meses, si no años."[41]​.

From international financial institutions

Those attending the Washington Summit of the G20 in November 2008 foresee the adjustments that are included in the following topics: 1. Strengthen transparency and responsibility in financial markets; 2. Improve regulation; 3. Transparently evaluate national regulatory systems; 4. Promote integrity in financial markets; 5. Intensify international cooperation; and 6. Reform international financial institutions, increasing the number of members from emerging countries.

According to IBase, with this the G20 tries to perpetuate the liberalization process, showing confidence in the instruments used until then, such as private risk management or credit rating agencies. Thus, the change of geopolitical course that implies the opening of some of the institutions, such as the Financial Stability Forum and the G20 itself, to emerging countries, was not accompanied by a change of course in regulatory strategies or in the democratization of decision-making but rather served to legitimize the institutions that produced the crisis, as well as to reaffirm their "commitment to an open global economy (...)".[41]

According to another source, the best long-term progress at this summit is "the agreement on coordinated regulation of the financial sector based on greater transparency." Although "the historic event of the summit is the increase in credits granted to the IMF. (...) But "it is not yet possible to know if this will have an impact on the real economy, and furthermore the summit does not provide solutions on the solvency of financial institutions, on the economic relaunch, the homogenization of taxation and accounting standards, etc."[50]​.

Regarding the regulation of banking entities, some proposals are being studied to once again avoid the drift that led to the 2008 crisis, among them:[51]​.

• - buy back the toxic assets (although the mechanism is difficult to apply).

• - provide them with a guarantee that protects them against losses generated by those assets, as was done with Citi or Bank of America.

• - create a public bank that takes back bad assets and frees up the balance sheets of financial entities.

• - introduce an alternative model to massive public intervention.

• - promote a review of financial regulation, with better protection of consumers and investors.

Of the states and continental organizations

The European position consists of expanding on a global scale the principles of regulation, coordination and solidarity that have been the pillars of European construction:

• - Regulation: "Current international financial regulation is a kind of patchwork, crazy and sometimes frayed: the supervision of certain important actors (rating agencies, investment funds) is incomplete; the coherence between the rules (accounting, prudential) and the institutions that define them is insufficient, as insufficient as the fight against non-cooperative tax havens."

• - Coordination: "The same is true in terms of risk analysis: the innumerable international sentinels do not communicate or communicate little among themselves, making it difficult to identify global risks. They must be organized into networks and thus be able to alert leaders early."

In the field of institutional strengthening, the IMF has to play an essential role. "Just as the European Union was equipped with an Ecofin and a Eurogroup, the International Monetary and Financial Committee of the IMF should become a true ministerial council with statutory powers. Emerging countries should be much more involved" following the first steps taken within the framework of the G20 itself (...) "The IMF, relegitimized, must also have instruments adapted to its new mission, guarantee measures, even a new liquidity instrument."

• - Solidarity: "one of the dangers of the current crisis is its connection with climate change and underdevelopment. Europe is the first contributor of development aid; it is setting objectives that are as difficult as they are exemplary in terms of environmental investments. This gives it strong legitimacy to launch the debate in Washington and propose an international conference to improve global economic governance on these bases."[52]​.

The European Union can contribute its experience in financial regulation. Thus, the road map of the Council for Economic and Financial Affairs (Ecofin) is articulated around four axes of work: improving transparency, evaluation of financial products, strengthening prudential requirements and improving the functioning of markets thanks to a more appropriate line of conduct in terms of credit rating.[53]​.

In particular, Gordon Brown proposed converting the IMF into an independent global central bank with its own financial means,[54]​ while Sarkozy proposed that the IMF coordinate global regulation with a plan for global governance and recovery strategy, and that the ILO play a greater role in emerging from the financial crisis.[55]​.

The American orientation, supported by Great Britain and Japan, consists of reviving the engine of the world economy with greater economic stimulus for financial institutions and actors. This contrasts with the European vision that gives more importance to regulation. In practice, the G20 agreed on a package of 1.1 trillion dollars for the IMF that must be dedicated to the issuance of Special Drawing Rights (SDR), although many comments have highlighted the limited nature of the measure.[56]​.

In the regulatory system

Improved financial governance generally needs to strengthen international standards that regulate financial market activity.

• - Regulated reintegration of markets.

A central idea is the development of a reintegration of the financial and productive economies, regulated by specific regulations that put the former at the service of the latter. It is about breaking with the exchange rates determined by capital movements and returning to rates determined by real commercial exchanges. Thus, "central banks [must have] more control over the transmission channels of monetary policy so that regulatory tasks are effective. Only by dispensing with irrational exuberance in the financial system of the future will it be possible to shake off the bubble behaviors that have forced the Bretton Woods system to be remade."[57]​ To do this, it is necessary to delimit the payment system, deposits, loans to consumers and small and medium-sized businesses. As well as reintroducing measures of structural separation between financial activities that are incompatible with each other, the mixture of which is one of the factors causing the 2008 crisis[58]​.

On the other hand, a specific and strong regulatory role must be established, which crosses and integrates the various highly interdependent sectors, but with separate regulation (stock market, banking, insurance). This function should correspond to the IMF or the Financial Stability Fund[59]​.

Finally, the Basel II standards as well as the International Financial Reporting Standards must be reviewed to avoid the systemic risk posed by their procyclical nature of accentuating economic shocks.[60]​.

• - Transparency.

Greater transparency of banks, financial establishments, international institutions, state organizations (central bank accounts, national budgets, foreign accounts, loan contracts, title modalities, performance indicators) is necessary and should be a basic directive of the international [29]​ and national financial and monetary systems. Specifically, banking secrecy should be eliminated.[61] According to Ibase, it is necessary to "remove the veil that covers the functioning of financial markets and institutions to make it accessible to ordinary citizens and civil society activists. There is absolutely nothing important about financial systems that cannot be understood and evaluated by adequately informed ordinary citizens."[6] On the other hand, "new financial citizenship rights must be established, based on the maximum transparency of financial entities and on a charter of information and financial education rights for those citizens."[62]​.

Specifically, "a true public audit of the internal rules of operation of the IFIs must be established, (...) redefine the relationships between institutions and between these institutions and their "surveillance authorities", establish a control system by parliaments and the population (...) [and] establish a system of long-term comparative analysis based on the permanent capitalization of experience.[23]​.

• - Financial models.

First of all, it is necessary to introduce limits on debt capacity so that banks do not depend excessively on debt, putting the entire economy at risk.[62]​.

On the other hand, it is also necessary:

• - Establish a model of ethical finance that prohibits distorting financial investments in raw materials, to avoid food or oil price bubbles, which have had so much social cost on citizens. In addition, new socially responsible investment criteria and rankings should be introduced that give priority to those investments and companies that carry out activities beneficial to society.

• - Eliminate tax havens and redirect their funds to meet the millennium goals. To achieve this, it is necessary to launch a battery of national and international initiatives that require a strong political push, but whose overall returns would be very positive. In this sense, the introduction of a progressive and coordinated tax regularization process until 2015 should be considered."[62]​.

According to Ibase, there are three basic alternative models that could replace the current formats and would meet the expressed requirements.

"1. A drastically reduced financial system in which credit and transaction services would be provided by public banks and private wealth markets would be closed. Speculation in the banking system would be prevented by strict specification of its functions.

2. A mixed financial system, in which the banking sector was absorbed by the State, but the securities and non-banking financial intermediation markets remained in private hands, although closely regulated and supervised.

3. The third model would preserve private ownership of banks and non-bank financial institutions as well as securities markets, but would drastically revamp the system of regulation and supervision. In particular, the current Basel strategy of carrying out prudential regulation based on microeconomic standards would be abandoned in favor of a systemic and macroeconomic criterion of stability.

All of these proposals, however, share a fundamental characteristic which is to restore the prominent role of public entities in the control of the financial system that guarantees that it plays a constructive role in the financing of productive activities and consumption while at the same time preserving an acceptable degree of stability of the system."[41]​.

Another possibility is the recovery of non-Western economic traditions for their generalization at an international level. For example, the prohibition of riba (usurious interest) in the Koran and other Islamic religious documents and its application in the modern context in which the growth of international trade, especially in southern countries, also implies the growth of exchanges between Islamic countries, have led Greco[63]​ to think about the possibility of creating an international organization capable of managing these exchanges. The generalization of inter-Islamic trade and, why not, between non-Islamic countries, following these principles, would help, among others, to greatly reduce the debt burden of underdeveloped countries.[64]​.

• - Actors, agents and financial products.

Here are other proposals for reviewing the economic and financial system:

• - benefit centralized, more transparent financial markets over individualized transaction markets, such as options or futures markets.

• - normalize and regulate the different types of securitization[65]​.

• - eliminate compensation schemes for intermediary agents, based on the total number of transactions, which encourage their maximization for the exclusive benefit of them.

• - regular evaluation of the action of intermediaries.

• - prohibition of financial options (stock options) that disrupt systems of solidarity towards employees.

• - reduce the voting rights of shareholders to those who are shareholders permanently after a few years.

• - New rules on equity between bank shareholders.

• - Legal limits to the fragmentation of financial risks.

• - Limits on conflicts of interest.

• - Reorient savings towards long-term sustainable investments[66]​.

• - Corporate governance.

• - First of all, company evaluation systems must be improved through accounting changes and new rating agencies: the market valuation of assets must be complemented to avoid the disappearance of solvent companies in times of financial panic.[62]​.

• - It is also necessary to correct "the deficiencies in corporate governance that have given rise to compensation schemes that benefit corporate managers to the detriment of other stakeholders, including shareholders."[67]​ One can, specifically, reform the remuneration systems of managers and limit business shields: their remunerations must be related to the creation of value in the medium term and their compensation linked to the causes of dismissal.[62]​.

• - The criminal liability of company executives must also be increased[66]​ and on the other hand, as an anti-speculative measure and to limit irresponsibility among shareholders, the voting rights of those shareholders must be reduced to those who are permanent shareholders after a few years.[66]​ as well as answers to the lack of independence of financial analysts.[23]​.

• - A proposal that concerns the structure of corporate governance is to develop an obligation of transparency of the company towards interested parties beyond the small circle of shareholders, and of their participation. In the case of banks at risk of bankruptcy, it may involve not only their public rescue but also exercising control through inspection regarding private responsibilities and the way in which private money is invested.[68]​.

In the international monetary system

Increased global coordination among central banks is necessary, according to some, "to control liquidity, expand their surveillance of asset inflation, and promote financial stability."[62]​.

• - Liquidity.

Gonçalves proposes the creation of a world monetary institution with the power to issue money and credit and thus control the level of international liquidity. To avoid domination of the financial market by the United States, it would be necessary at least, according to the same author, for the American Treasury to contribute to a global compensation fund, destined for the development of the countries of the South.[29]​.

Another measure is the creation by the IMF of a short-term liquidity line for emerging economies that suffer liquidity crises caused by systemic financial crises external to the economic policy of these countries.[69]​ On the other hand, the emergence of regional monetary funds would make it possible to have greater liquidity to facilitate sustainable development on a regional scale.[34]​.

• - Stabilization.

There are different proposals to stabilize the excess of randomness in the evolution of the value of currencies, as well as speculative attacks on some currencies:

Firstly, a fixed exchange system (a priori agreement on the value of currencies)[70]​ or flexible exchange system (a posteriori agreement) of exact parity or with a fluctuation threshold can be created between the main currencies (euro, yen, dollar, yuan). Another possibility is to initiate stabilization on a regional scale by creating regional currencies with a stable value between them, by creating a common unit of account to replace the current dominance of the dollar. Next, the rest of the world's currencies should be aligned with one of the strong currencies.[23]​[71]​ Another possibility is to multiply the issuance of the already existing Special Drawing Rights (SDR) and give them a greater role in the world monetary system, although according to Taddei that alone would not ensure stabilization[71]​.

On the other hand, a monetary clause could be introduced that would allow compensatory taxes to be established for countries that practice excessive devaluation of their currencies.[72]​.

The stabilization of the main currencies must also imply the stabilization of the cost of energy. Which implies the participation, along with the countries with the strongest currencies, of Russia and the Middle Eastern countries. Along these same lines, individual negotiable quotas in fossil energy could be created as a full-fledged currency[66].

• - Adjustment of the balance of payments.

An ad hoc institution, financed by the public sector and by a private sector capable of assuming a greater commitment to social responsibility, could support countries with difficulties in their capital balance. This would also imply a modification of the exchange system and a readjustment of the debt.[73]​.

In development finance

The main objective of financial regulation should be to promote full employment and development, according to IBase:[41]​ "Financial markets and institutions must be functional to the needs of development and production, promoting inclusion and open access to service products and savings of the general population. But this is not enough. It is also crucial that these functions are carried out without putting society at risk of serious turbulence and crisis. This means that regulation and supervision must be recognized for what they are: police work to control destructive tendencies incubated in the normal operation of financial markets. It is not a question of criminalizing financial activities. It must be recognized, however, that some activities present special threats to society and therefore become the object of special attention and monitoring. To ensure that the stability of the system is taken care of, financial regulation must be extended to all segments of the system. Instruments such as over-the-counter derivatives or entities such as “variable interest entities”, private equity funds and hedge funds must be. evaluated from the point of view of their impact on the general macro-stability of the system through macro-prudential regulation."[41]

From a reformist perspective, the financial system must serve the evolution of development without questioning the mechanism of conditionality. Some measures are:

• - Ensure access to commercial finance, especially to the poorest countries, for sectors and activities interrupted by the credit crunch.

• - Address liquidity problems through payment systems that include different currencies (see liquidity).

• - Establish an anti-crisis financial mechanism to provide large-scale, under conditionality, rapid disbursement funds to reduce the impact of the decline in exports from less developed countries[78]​.

Foreign debt has become an important limitation for the development of Southern countries. Debt increases the external vulnerability of these countries, which often orient their economic policies towards stabilizing their balance of payments, due to debt. It is necessary to create debt relief mechanisms, or deepen those that already exist.[29]​ To combat exclusion, there are, according to Dembinski, different proposals that range from periodic retirement of unpaid debts to arbitration procedures for relief of the most unbearable debt. The same author affirms the need to establish a relationship between the foreign debt of poor countries and the corruption of their leaders, in order to include the right of persecution as one of the conditions for debt renegotiation.[73]​ Another type of conditions for debt negotiation can be respect for economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR), the added value of exports and the reinforcement of the internal market to avoid new over-indebtedness.[79]​.

Attention should also be paid to what Ugarteche[80]​ calls the Highly Indebted Rich Countries (PRAE). Loans destined for these countries, which generate significant volumes of debt, should also be conditional on the reorganization of their economies and the achievement of financial order.

At local level

"There are various experiences and innovations at a microeconomic or local scale that try to increase the autonomy of the various actors, especially in relation to the financial system, which they can hardly influence: complementary currencies and microfinance, the principle of sharing profits and losses between companies and financiers"[101]​.

The participation of all actors involved in the economic inclusion processes that result from the development of some financial fund projects causes beneficial individual and collective effects on the community concerned. An example is the Regional Fund for Social Innovation (Fonds régional pour l'innovation sociale) of Nord Pas-de-Calais in France[103]​.

The network structuring of financial institutions at the local level can constitute another entry point for the generalization of alternative financial models to the entire society. Thus, in the specific case of Brazil, according to Grosso[104]​ it would be possible to structure small, financially sustainable institutions, relying on the scarce resources of the community, as long as these entities do not act in isolation but rather in consortia of microfinance entities. Another author[105] states that it is necessary to develop and share existing decentralized financial experiences such as cooperatives or mutual societies, credit unions, rural savings banks and self-managed and solidarity credit systems, to extract common lessons and facilitate the structuring of alternative financial models to the liberal model. These types of actions could be complemented from a political point of view with the implementation of democratic and solidarity regulatory mechanisms that establish surveillance against the risks of instrumentalization of solidarity economy initiatives by local and state governments, and international institutions.[106]​.

Another initiative in the field of decentralized finance is the establishment of "native clubs" among Mexican migrants emigrating to the United States. It is about "channeling the use of remittances towards common welfare projects that improve the living conditions of the community. In the short and medium term the objectives are to satisfy the basic needs of infrastructure, health and education services; and in the long term, launch productive projects that generate employment and capitalize the communities." These clubs are at the same time generators of social networks of cooperation and community work both in the communities of origin and among migrant communities in the country of destination.[107]​.

Finally, it is also necessary to pressure international and continental institutions (United Nations, WTO, IMF, World Bank, ILO) to review their policies and integrate the solidarity economy as an essential component of sustainable development, as well as establish an international lobby before the UNDP so that the methodology and human development indicators incorporate the issues of the solidarity economy.[108]​.

• - Rethinking Finance. Alternative Voices for a New Financial Architecture.

• - Bretton Woods Project.

• - Forum for a New World Governance.

• - Towards sustainable finance. A workshop of the Socio-Solidarity Economy Pole (PSES - ALOE).

• - Institut de recherche et de débat sur la gouvernance Archived December 25, 2009 at the Wayback Machine.

• - New Economics Foundation.

• - New Rules of Global Finance.

• - Journal of Financial Market Law.

• - The Global Financial Crisis.