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Why Greylag Geese and Money-laundering are Not Objective Problems: A Rejoinder

Over the past few years, the population of greylag geese has grown rapidly on the Bavarian lake where I live. Much to the annoyance of swimmers, this growth has the consequence that many beaches have become terribly polluted by the geese’s excrement. As I like to swim the geese are, for me, definitely a problem that needs to be solved. Now, let us assume Ian Roberge came for a visit because we wanted to exchange our views on money-laundering not only in Global Society but also in person. Perhaps we would sit by the lake having a sandwich, when a gaggle of geese came waddling by. I would mumble that hopefully the council will soon allow the geese to be culled in order to reduce their numbers. What I had not known is that—again, this is just an assumption—Ian Roberge was an animalrights activist. He would be upset by what I had just said. To him, the greylag geese are not at all the problem, but rather it is people like me who want them to be culled. Who is right? Are the greylag geese a problem or not? I would hold that this cannot be decided. They are a problem for me, but not for him. Roberge, in contrast, would argue that this surely can be determined, as an issue is “in and of itself” either a problem or not. And greylag geese, he would declare, are definitely not a problem—and he would feed what is left of his sandwich to the geese in defiance. This fictitious scenario illustrates the principal disagreement between Ian Roberge and me—though admittedly our “real-world” disagreement is not about greylag geese but about the money-laundering “problem”. For Roberge, my concept of “problematisation” denies the existence of a real money-laundering problem. Below I will argue that, yes, this is exactly what the concept implies, and that his argument of why money-laundering is an objective problem does not convince me as it is contradictory. The other point of criticism in Roberge’s response suggests that my article ignores the dominant role of the United States in the global anti-money-laundering regime. This criticism simply misses its target, as my contribution does emphasise the key role played by the United States. Yet, even if it had not, this would hardly have weakened my general argument. In the following I deal with both criticisms in greater detail, starting with the role