IMF

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz's account of his years in the Clinton administration and at the World Bank is a prosecutor's brief against globalization. Whether it will be enough to convince the jury is a different story.

From Seattle to Quebec City, antiglobalization protesters have complained that international institutions are illegitimate because they are undemocratic. To fight this perception, global organizations need to increase transparency, improve accountability, and think harder about norms for global governance.

The global financial turmoil that began in Thailand in 1997 has forced the international community to reevaluate the institutions, structures, and policies aimed at crisis prevention and resolution. In September 1998 President Clinton suggested that a distinguished private-sector group assess the need for reform of the international financial architecture. With this concern in mind, the Council on Foreign Relations sponsored the Independent Task Force on the Future of the International Financial Architecture, cochaired by Peter G. Peterson, chairman of both the Council and the Blackstone Group and secretary of commerce during the Nixon administration, and Carla A. Hills, CEO of Hills & Co. and U.S. Trade Representative during the Bush administration.

The global financial crisis has eroded developing nations' faith in modern capitalism itself, and the meltdown of Brazil's currency was grim evidence that the chaos is far from over. But few lessons have been absorbed. That had better change. Key Wall Street and Washington players do agree that crisis management was muffed, the nature of contagion misunderstood, and the importance of local politics underestimated. But they argue over the pace of fiscal liberalization, the efficacy of the IMF rescues, and the importance of "moral hazard." Herewith, a politically realistic plan to bridge the gaps and gird for the next, inevitable disaster.