New Age Globalization

This book examines the interdependent and interconnected global society, or globalization, in terms of its structural and functional or process characteristics. For its value implications, it is dedicated to the peo-ple—the men, women, and children as citizens of the world—who make and unmake global society and are most affected by it. Whether always specifically stated or not, the underlying concern of this work is global social change for human welfare on this planet, which is either aided or abated by human action itself.

A systems approach to understanding society at large and social orgaizations in particular was first proposed by biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy in the 1960s.¹ Bertalanffy suggested that complex social and organizational structures resemble natural and organic systems in some important ways—the so-called organismic analogy. Informed by this innovative idea, social scientists and economists like Talcott Parsons and Kenneth Boulding began to develop elaborate theories of social systems, with particular reference to the Western capitalist societies like the United States in the post–World War II and postcolonial climates of the 1950s and 1960s.² The systems approach to explain interdependent subsystem dynamics of complex organizations and total societies became the rhetoric of the age and a popular technocratic tool in the hands of international development agencies in Europe and America in the emerging development decades: “We can change the world through systemic planning and interventions:” It did not quite work out that way. Political leaders, economic managers, and development planners across the world by now seem to at least partially if not fully understand the problem of unintended consequences of “planned” system interventions from inside or outside in a highly interdependent and interconnected world.

As stated up front, this work is dedicated to defining the ABC’s of global society or globalization as a system of interconnected and interdependent structures and processes as they affect people and their communities everywhere. With that in mind, it makes sense to start our discussion with global population trends, as they have shaped and reshaped human societies over the millennia and are likely to do so throughout time. Details about these trends and variations are well known.¹ Repeating them would simply be redundant. At the same time, no study focusing on the interdependence of various facets of globalization can ignore reflecting on the key population parameters and to point out some of their lesser appreciated dimensions. For example, it may not always be fully appreciated that the world population today constitutes a mutually inclusive continuous subsystem of a larger system with far-reaching implications for our planet in that any significant change in one geographic region sooner or later would reflect not only on populations but also on social, economic, and political dynamics in other regions as well. Population trends have always been major factors in triggering social change in communities and societies. Now they have acquired global dimensions with far-reaching implications for the planetary environment, resources, conflicts, cooperation, and national social and economic well-being.

The antecedents of global economy are a highly debatable and important cultural and political issue. Understanding its roots may help clear the air for a better understanding of what global economy really is or is not. Social change, big or small, either positive or negative, even with ostensibly abrupt revolutions, almost never occurs in a historical vacuum. That certainly seems true for the current state of global economy or economic globalization.

This chapter has three interconnected sections: “Global Environmental Quality and Concerns”; “Food, Water, Hygiene, and Health Care”; and “Health Care for All.” These otherwise obvious connections will nonetheless be highlighted as and when necessary in each section and then in the chapter summary.

The purpose of this chapter is to highlight the main features of political institutions that contribute to and characterize what is defined here as the global political system or political globalization. It covers the following three main themes:

From the United Nations (UN) to the Commonwealth of Nations, resolving conflicts by peaceful means is one of the primary goals of international, intergovernmental political institutions, assuming that human development without peace and security is oxymoronic as is peace without relative degrees of social and economic security. Ironically and unfortunately, their inadequacy to help peaceful resolution of global conflicts comes in sharp focus with the fact that the twentieth century was the most violent of all previous centuries in terms of its lethality. Forty-five major wars were fought in that century. Approximately 90 million people, military and civilians, lost their lives in those wars. In comparison, WWI took 19 million lives; World War II killed 61 million, including 300,000+ Americans; the Korean War alone caused 3.6 million civilian and military deaths; the Vietnam War killed millions of Vietnamese and 58,000+ Americans; and the four-year (1984–87) Iraqi-Iranian war resulted in 1.5 million (estimated) casualties including hundreds of thousands deaths on each side.¹

While global economy is the most discussed and debated aspect of globalization, its cultural aspects are the least noticed and appreciated. This is primarily because of the multifaceted nature of the concept of culture and the vast diversity of its manifestations and expressions. Sociologists define culture as “all the products of a society that are created over time and shared. These products may be tangible or intangible,” belonging to the material or nonmaterial dimensions of culture, respectively.¹ We as humans think, believe, and behave through our culture and in the process we create it. According to sociologist George Herbert Mead, it is through this interactive relationship between the human mind and culture that both our selves and society have evolved over time.² There are a thousand different ways in which mankind has thought, believed, and behaved in different physical and social spaces. It is, therefore, hard to think of a “globalized culture,” at least in terms of its intangible dimensions, such as language, beliefs, and rituals. But as a reminder, the common denominator of globalization in this discourse is not uniformity but interaction, interdependence, and elements of unity in a vast sea of diversity. World cultures have interacted and learned from each other for thousands of years through the processes of acculturation, adaptation, diffusion, and assimilation. The difference is that these processes and the changes they produce have accelerated enormously in the age of globalization making the local global and the global local.

Scientific discoveries and technological inventions have been the greatest sources of both violent and nonviolent social and cultural transformations throughout human history, from the invention of the sword, gunpowder, the compass, the clock, and alchemy to the theories of gravity, electromagnetism, relativity, and the development of lasers, integrated circuits, microchips, computers, nuclear bombs, and nanotechnologies. These ideas and inventions that have transformed our world have come from diverse cultural and intellectual traditions and sources. They are normally taken for granted while their origins and antecedents go unnoticed. The common person’s history of modern science and technology begins with the Industrial Revolution in Europe three hundred years ago and ends in the contemporary United States as the leading country.

The discussion so far in this work has emphasized the outreach and interdependence of the multifaceted phenomenon of globalization that has brought the world closer as a unitary system and made it more connected in more ways than ever before. It would, however, be impossible to fully grasp the reality, the scope, and the future prospects of globalization without understanding the place of religion in this “brave new world.” Religions today are as much affected by or affecting the process of globalization as the global economy, politics, and culture discussed previously. Religion, religiosity, and religious tolerance or intolerance are perhaps the most powerful forces that could help bring the world together or tear it apart.