By Ingrid Srinath     Release Date: 21 November 2008 = e-CIVICUS 416
In Indian mythology, the Samudramanthan, or churning of the ocean, produced both the deadly poison that could exterminate the world and the nectar of immortality. It is now clear to all, except a few die-hard market fundamentalists, that the crisis confronting us is neither limited to financial markets nor to particular countries. While diagnoses of causes and prescriptions of remedies still vary, it is apparent that we are about to witness a global ripple effect of unprecedented scale and severity.

There are only two choices. One is to limit intervention and revert to the series of quick fixes aimed at finding-the-floor for markets and return to business-as-usual as quickly as possible. Votaries of this approach differ only in their tolerance of collateral damage. How many millions more is it okay to push over the edge of starvation? Which jobs merit being saved and which will be permitted to fall by the wayside?

The other option is to seize the opportunity to invent a new global economic order and system of governance based on accountability, sustainability and justice. One that is not systemically designed to increase inequity or ensure the poorest pay the price of insulating the powerful, or include economic models that can only succeed by threatening the survival of our species and the planet we co-inhabit.

Leaders of the world's top 20 economies met last week in Washington DC. The inclusion of representatives of emerging markets marked a small step towards acknowledging that the world has changed. It did not, however, challenge the assumption that seats at the table can only be bought in the currencies of economic or military might. The need to address wider impacts and governance found token mentions in the communiqué. Overall, the summit barely met the low expectations that preceded it.

The meetings in Doha next week will be more inclusive and focus more squarely on the issues that affect the vast majority of humanity. We need our elected leaders - North and South - to simply extend the logic that they are currently applying within their respective countries to the global community. Within their home economies, the lessons of the last Great Depression have apparently been learned and safety nets and social investments are being rolled out even at the cost of ballooning deficits. In a world as connected and interdependent as the one we live in now, it would seem obvious that the same solutions need to be implemented globally - if we are to avoid the utterly foreseeable cataclysmic consequences.

The sound rationale that underpinned the agreements of the past decade on debt relief, development assistance and the MDGs is more relevant and more urgent than ever before. And the costs - should we choose myopia over vision - equally apparent. Why is it self-evident that to qualify for a bail-out the US auto-industry must fundamentally restructure itself to a more sustainable path, but not as clear that the identical logic should be applied to the economy as a whole and to the institutions of global governance? An unusually optimistic corporate CEO recently summed it up as a choice between defending the past and creating the future. Poison or nectar?