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Hawaii’s World
IMAGINE yourself in the year 1900 trying to predict what the next 100 years would bring. Globalization
good bet for
next centuryAlmost certainly not a single shot hit the mark or foresaw the vast technological and economic progress and blood-letting destruction ahead.
Predictions for the 21st century surely will be just as futile. Still, a single word from an East-West Center high-level international seminar earlier this month seems likely to hold up.
"Globalization" looks like a can't-lose prediction. East-West Center President Charles Morrison focused on it in his opening remarks. They were optimistic at some times, very problem-laden at others.
He noted it will bring individuals more choice and broader perspectives but also may be a corruptive loosening of traditional institutions and the social fabric.
He said it already has eroded lifetime employment in Japan, the "iron rice bowl" in China and job guarantees under U.S. labor contracts.
Between 1960 and 1997 the income disparities between the richest and lowest fifths of the world's population grew from 30 to one to 74 to one.
Even in the U.S., real per capita income over a recent 20-year period declined for 60 percent of the population.
I made a marginal note that the best we can hope for in the 21st century will be "muddling through to a better future."
We face a mixed plate: Technology-induced international tensions, technology-induced tensions within nations where benefits turn out unequally, national borders facing erosion from technology, national sovereignties threatened, cultural erosion in the direction of westernization, national resistances thereto, publics more aware of the costs than the benefits, possibly even greater income disparities and even more poverty, power blocs forming, international groupings working to alleviate the worst dangers, peace in our time still an elusive goal.
BLESSED are the peace-keepers and they will have to be wise indeed.
One discussant defined security as "a good night's sleep." A lot of people may be denied it -- both by their own governments and by international tensions.
Yet the opportunities also are there (but not evenly) for higher living standards, better health, better education, almost unbelievable opportunities for international contact.
One of the attendees was former Defense Secretary William Perry, a modest, unassuming man. He was a major mover in paving the way for the leaders of North and South Korea to hold their first meeting in 50 years.
He did it by quiet talks with both sides to bring a focus on the potential advantages in ending their hostility, spawned by their 1950-53 war and their unequal progress since then.
Someone referred to the progress as "fragile." Keeping the wider peace in the face of globalizations's challenges to old orders will be immensely more complicated, demanding and fragile -- as I suggested in last Thursday's column on missile threats.
There are a couple of other fairly sure trend predictions. India about 10 years from now will surpass China as the world's most populous nation. Asia will steadily move ahead of Europe as the place where the economic action is and where America must place more focus.
I have been called a Pollyanna who likes to see the good in things. Globalization through technological improvement has so many possibilities for making lives better for all. Yet it will need wise politicians and economists to show the way to make it acceptable and thus peaceful.
A.A. Smyser is the contributing editor
and former editor of the the Star-Bulletin
His column runs Tuesday and Thursday.