THE FINANCIAL STABILITY BOARD (FSB)

PARADIGM OF THE EMERGING ORDER OF NETWORKS

Abstract

The Financial Stability Board (FSB), shortly after its creation by the G20 in 2009, was labeled as the “fourth pillar” of the international order, alongside the WTO, IMF and World Bank. However, its structure differs from that of the three other agencies: among the members of this new body various transnational networks stand out, the main reason the FSB calls itself the “network of networks”. The origin of this configuration of the FSB can be traced to the writings of David Mitrany, who theorized about the progressive expansion of a network of specialized agencies, a process which he predicted would culminate in the formation of a world government. Mitrany’s theories, elaborated in the 1940s and reformulated by the Council on Foreign Relations and Trilateral Commission since 1970, predict decades in advance and with alarming precision the current structure of the G20/FSB. The establishment of this “global governance” has been led by the United States and members of those same “think tanks”, who have been occupying key positions in the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations. The evidence to be explored in this article point to the possibility of the materialization of the following scenario: the United States will dismantle the old order founded upon those three “international institutions”, with the goal of introducing an order whose main protaganist will be transnational networks; and the FSB, “the network of networks”, which lies at the center of the global financial system, will be the paradigm to be used in the construction of this emerging order of networks.