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Global Crossroads
Garrick Utley, President, Levin Institute 
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Interdependence
Tue,07/01/08
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“Interdependence” is a term and a truism that has been around for a long time as in, “we live in an interdependent world” etc. But do we really believe it, or want to believe it? Are we ready to act on what the word means?
Global interdependence has never held more urgency than today. In the past year we have seen how the interdependence of the global financial markets can cause big problems. In the past few months we have watched as soaring prices of oil, food and other essential commodities have driven global inflation rates, reshaped national economies and the lives of people. Our environmental interdependence is on almost everyone’s priority list. At the Beijing Olympics in August the level of air pollution will attract as much attention as the winning time in the 100-meter sprint or the marathon.
The question we face today is whether the above, and other factors, will redefine globalization, as we have known it. A consensus is developing that something fundamental has changed. In a recent article in the Financial Times, Robert Hormats and Jim O’Neill, of Goldman Sachs, summed up succinctly much of what lies behind this new world we live in. At the start of this decade (and the 21st Century) the United States accounted for 34 percent of global GDP; today it accounts for 28 percent.
In the same period the financial reserves of China have grown from $200 billion to nearly two trillion. Russia’s reserves have grown from $35 to $500 billion; India’s from $50 to $300 billion; and Brazil’s from $35 to $200 billion. And this does not include the gigantic rise in wealth in other, energy producing countries. As global wealth spreads and grows the competition for resources spreads and grows. So too does the ability of more people in more nations to participate in financial markets, with the gains, losses and risks that implies.
While economic growth is slowing for now in the most prosperous countries, overall global growth is still strong, driven by the redistribution of global wealth. This is enormous power. And it is the mere fact of this new power shift (and new power centers) in the world that puts muscle behind the term “interdependence”. What is missing today is the proper and institutionalized recognition of what is happening in our world. It is not easy for the older, established powers on the world stage to face and accept the fact that is staring them in the face. The United Nations Security Council still has the same five permanent members it had in 1945. The G7 (or G8) does not reflect the new economic and financial balance of power. An American always heads the World Bank while the Europeans hold the top position at the International Monetary Fund etc.
How much longer can this go on in our now critically interdependent world? Not very long, I would suspect. Who is going to tackle this big job, and responsibility, to face the new global facts of life? A new American president in January? Someone has to lead.
What do you think? |
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Tue,07/14/09
By : Ken Ewell
In my view, the very idea that 'interdependence' can somehow be controlled or managed is absurd. PrimeBizNews may have recognized several 'aspects of interdependency' though they failed to recognize the object at all. I agree mainly with Mr. Beyer who wrote: there is no readily understood overall understanding of its true implications. If there were, people would understand the unity and unifying process of interdependence and that it is not something that can be legislated or guaranteed by a political leader. Interdependence is part of the natural order. It is not so much something you can control but something that must be obeyed. I do not mean obeyed in a legal or political sense, I mean in the sense of a natural law of the natural order.
As Freud wrote 'There is an intellectual function in us which demands unity, connection and intelligibility from any material, whether of perception or thought...' This demand for unity acts as a kind of configuration filter on distant affairs. It is inevitable that we realize this interdependence and learn how to use it to turn the elements of the indeterminate situation (in existence) into a whole and unified state of existence in which the delicate network of thematic relationships flourish and succeed. Ken http://commonsensical.wordpress.com |
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Wed,07/16/08
By : Thomas Lilburn
Globalization and "Interdependence" are both subject to interpretation and emphasis based on a readers perspective. Interdependence can be expressed narrowly as being financial market oriented or globally as in the ineractions affecting economies of nation states. There can be no question that the free flow of capital across borders has directly impacted how resources are developed and used globally.We know that what happens here impacts individuals, corportions and nation states almost instantaneously. As for the United States response to these forces, we tend to acknowledge being "interdependent" but react to it as a part of a competitive landscape. In this context we are not alone in concerns as to relative power and degrees of rivalry in the search for an advantage, but we need be concerned. There should be room in the course of events to create and develop a complimentary force of cooperation as referenced by Jeffrey Sachs. An area ripe for a cooperative approach is the export of purchasing power West to East and how to balance flows. In the absence of cooperation, the positive elements of globalization will devolve into flows of economic advantage that will not be sustainable over time in any particular nation, be it prosperous or developing.A failure to develop an appropriate response to interdependence could lead to a game of economic and cultural musical chairs. It is not the job of the next American president to deal with "Interdependence" only to acknowledge existence, it is the responsibillity of economic, cultural and political institutions to lead via a pragmatic and public dialogue. The purpose of the dialogue would be to define and guide individual and institutional actions within the context of interdependence. |
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Wed,07/02/08
By : Larry Kazdan
"What is missing today is the proper and institutionalized recognition of what is happening in our world. It is not easy for the older, established powers on the world stage to face and accept the fact that is staring them in the face." Many agree that we need new democratic institutions at the global level but how do we get there from here?
One strategy is the creation of a World Parliament modeled on the European Parliament which now has co-decision power in the European Union. Little more than a year after its launch, an international campaign to bring democracy and citizens' representation to the United Nations has achieved a landmark. “Over 500 members of parliament from over 80 countries have now joined the international Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, or UNPA,” said Andreas Bummel, head of the UNPA Campaign Secretariat, headquartered in Berlin. “The enthusiastic response of these politicians demonstrates that lawmakers elected at the national level readily appreciate the logic of having elected representatives at the global level and now want to take action,” he added.
The UNPA's parliamentary endorsers (including Canada's Roméo Dallaire) have all signed the campaign's appeal (viewable at http://en.unpacampaign.org/appeal/index.php) which asserts that solutions to the world's major economic, environmental, humanitarian and other problems require that "all human beings engage in collaborative efforts,” including "a gradual implementation of democratic participation and representation on the global level.” "The means to achieve this," says Fernando Iglesias, a member of the Argentine Chamber of Deputies and the Latin American regional parliament "is an elected body at the UN."
In addition to the support of 519 current parliamentarians, the UNPA campaign has been endorsed by the European Parliament, the Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development of the Canadian House of Commons, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Pan-African Parliament and (most recently) the Latin American Parliament's Commission on Political Affairs. The appeal was initiated by an international campaign launched in May 2007. The UN Parliamentary Assembly could be established as a consultative body, without requiring UN Charter reform. It would initially be composed of national and regional parliamentarians but at a later stage become a directly elected body. "Anyone who believes in a more democratic world can sign the appeal by visiting www.unpacampaign.org," says Fergus Watt, Executive Director of the World Federalist Movement-Canada, a member of the UNPA Campaign steering committee. According to Watt, "a United Nations Parliamentay Assembly would help foster a sense of global community and create a powerful constituency for a United Nations system better equipped to tackle the many challenges ahead." |
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Wed,07/02/08
By : Harold Beyer
The public gladly uses the word 'interdependence' as an example of what is 'wrong' with this world of today. But, there is no readily understood overall understanding of its true implications. The false belief, that American Presidents should be the all-knowing white father figure who will lead us and the world to new heights of wealth and happiness, totally neglects the fact that, to get there, the candidate has to promise too many instant solutions to too many people with contravening views and needs.
Moreover, Presidents are, by design, people who personal powers have been compromised by their dependence upon legislative and jurisprudential prerogatives and powers. Thus, it is the media's job to promote change and progress, at least, as far as public readiness for it can be stimulated, encouraged, and facilitated. But, the media often is satisfied in being a mere 'Herald' of political signals from 'above'. There is room and need for that to some degree, of course, sometimes making press and television the spokesmen for Presidential views, sometimes for Congressional views.-
Undeniably, FREEDOM of the Press, too, goes just so far. The media are INTERDEPENDENT rather than 'unfettered', too .... Still, the media have the choice and RESPONSIBILITY of being 'independently partisan' in favor of such things as 'globalisation'. They can do so, by stopping to pollute the airwaves with the thousands of irrelevancies in the realm of news reporting and political commentary. In my mind, one good example of 'independent' view promotion was to popularize the university-bred term and 'political correctness' which has influenced public opinion tremendously (for good and ill..).
How about a pro-globalist promotion of the term "STRATEGIC NEGLECT", the tendency on succumb to the will of political pressure groups who systematically diminish pro-global sentiment by citing isolated horror stories tensding to create feelings of alienation against 'world government', 'secret conspiratorical international capitalism', etc. Without going to much into detail about the media's 'shortcomings when it comes to agitate for progress, let me just cite examples of what press and
television could be doing:
1. Promote international cooperation the way it used to be done during the Kennedy era (when the right 'tone' for it had been set);
2.be always SOURCE-SPECIFIC about anti-globalist advocation (the great influence that the media exercises by 'SORTING' -, including/omitting info in the name of 'newsworthiness';
3. putting a stop to the current tendency to engage in 'over-profiling' (citing one example as ABSOLUTE proof- suggestion that A PATTERN necessarily exists) 3. Vociferously attacking, subverting pro-global commentry and examplication by 'ad hominem'argument a la talkshow manner;
4. failing to grant non-American life-styles equal billing with domestic ways of doing things (provided, they are NOT hostile to the American way of life);
5. promote the showing of non-American entertainment,- especially, where the global growth and popularity of American entertainbment is live and well. The irrational fear that admiration for people in other countries could be interpreted as a preference for other countries over our own nation is totally unfounded, even infantile !-
5. The question 'WHY' should become a keyword in the realm of 'SOVEREIGNTY'. Rather than let everybody opine in terms of broad generalities about such outdated concepts, let us have COMMON SENSE discussions about such 'basic things' in the forum of public assertion and questioning. After all, the idea of 'making war' to 'win the peace', ur ultimate global aspiration, ought to be more thoroughly understood by the entire citizenry than it is today.
6. The corresponding question about who should be our President should not continue to be obscurred by such irrelevancies as to who has what for breakfast, who is seen with whom, etc. Such micro-'newsing' is a disservice to the American people, and, indirectly to the whole wold looking toward the United States as leader of a world now RETRIEVABLY INTER-DEPENDENT ! - |
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Wed,07/02/08
By : Harold Beyer
Most respectfully, I feel this article to me sounds more like a REALPOLITIK essay of 20th century vintage geopolitics than a statement of total commitment to the 'unconditional' advancement of the concept of globalization. This is not to say, that the views expressed are less than valid and valuable,.... just not as 'valuable' as they could have been.
More specifically, I would have liked to see the topic presented and illuminated from more than just our governmental and national interest angle ... (within the confines of this specialized forum, that is. Would it not have been more intriguing to see how other, globally respected non-American sources and authorities known to be committed to globalization value, engaging in evaluation of Sino-American economic relationships as they exist at the present time ?.... Let the reader decide, just how meritorious their arguments are, and, how plausible to us...
Moreover, we, the readers, should be put in a position of discerning for ourselves how convincing or unpersuasive are the Chiness proposals and argument are to our points of view and requirements. Otherwise, this forum is in danger of becoming just another 'outlet' of government 'old hat'. As I see it, the marvelous strength of this publication is its attempted promotion of INNOVATIVE, off-the-beaten-track observation and analysis, hard to find anywhere else as yet !- |
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Wed,07/02/08
By : PrimeBizNews
As an answer to Garrick Utley’s question of whether a new American president would be appropriate figure to tackle “new global facts of life”, we would say “Why not?” With one condition, if the US has a great leader who can embrace worldwide problems in a balanced manner beneficial to the global community.
Comment on economic aspect of Interdependence and role of UNPA. Term of interdependence, as applied to global economy, is neither "negative" nor "positive". It is a part of the globalization process itself, as well as its product. If certain markets are sharing economic infrastructures and regulatory mechanisms, they will naturally depend on each other's resources, economic cycles, and political cultures.
How can we control, or should we rather say direct, global markets and economies toward collaboration, with interdependence in mind? Given recent slowing down of developed economies due to market saturation and growing regulatory burden (not to deny benefits of having well-defined regulations), do we want to have the same level of control over booming emerging markets to cause them slow down in the near future as well? If redistribution of wealth, which is flowing into BRIC and other developing countries, could be attributed mainly to the rapid growth of those economies, how much of the "Parliamentary Assembly" power do we want to have influencing economic decisions and capital movements across the globe? This is not to say, that developing countries also deserve a chance to build their own economies in a new way without following established prototypes.
In our view, one way of managing 'interdependence' today, is to avoid mixing too many issues together. Separate strategies for economic, cultural, political, and environmental sectors would work best. Having recognized multiple aspects of interdependency, we cannot possibly be solving wide array of these issues under the same umbrella, whether it is a Parliament, or any other establishment. A single Parliament solution will inevitably result in economic slowing down across the globe, which we are not ready to handle yet. |
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