Economics of Global Service

As Valérie Engammare has noted, globalization goes further than economic issues. “Economics cannot be completely decoupled from ethics. Poverty, inequalities, hopelessness and marginalization are not mere economic issues” (quoted in Trade and Ethics, September 2003). “Global ethics would have to be defined, as well as the rights and obligations they imply. The right to development has been proclaimed as a human right by a UNHCR declaration in 1986. The international trade agenda must be considered in a broader framework and it must serve the objectives for which it has been created, i.e. increasing global welfare. Ethics matters at all levels – institutions, corporations, and individuals.”

In spite of the fact that ‘laissez faire’ and unrestricted competition give way to socialization and cooperation, the basis of prosperity is still individual effort, hard work and independence. Reciprocity and symmetry are the needs of the new social order. Cooperation must replace unbridled competition and an organized economic system must take the place of the present muddle. This is a fundamental economic problem, that in an age when cooperation is needed in human affairs, principles which served successfully during the age of competition are still upheld and regarded as inviolate.

Tariffs, currency manipulation, monopoly of raw materials, low wages; these are the greatest saboteurs of world prosperity. But they are only agents; the real monster is economic self sufficiency. Nearly every nation, or group of nations, has tried to practice this, and has gloried in what it believed to be its ability to be self-supporting. At the same time every effort has been made to keep up ‘foreign’ trade, which is to sell the other man something without buying anything in return.

Economic self-sufficiency is born of fear and selfishness, and has easily led to conflicts. In this modern world all people are in need of each other, can supply each other’s wants, and by the reciprocal action of buying and selling, contribute to an increasing standard of living. This is provided of course that the results of labour are equitably shared, and not concentrated in the hands of a minority. And the basis of equity must be universal, otherwise some nations will undersell all the others, e.g by using cheaper labour, and that will start the same old cycle.

The economic problem, like every major difficulty facing us today, is insoluble except on a world scale. We can not have poverty in one country and prosperity in the rest, the Atlantic Charter recognizes this. Neither can we cure poverty and unemployment in one country alone, it is a world problem. A united body can solve the economic problem once given the authority to set the world’s standards. It can remove the barriers to international trade which result from the attempts of nations to be self-sufficient. It can liberate the energies now devoted to war for service to the arts of peace, and it can provide the necessary machinery for an easier and greater interchange of goods and services. Such things as a world currency, a real world bank, a single system of weights and measures would come within its Charter. It must maintain free access to the raw materials of the planet, and protect the rights of all peoples. Maintain a universal minimum standard of living, and limit the economic power of individuals.

According to the Oxford Analytica, “Politically, this suggests that producer interests still dominate domestic policy processes in most countries of the world. Limited thought is being given to the architecture of a forward-looking multilateral trading system.” For a politician under pressure, the desire to find a foreign scapegoat for economic problems at home, and the clamor of those whose livelihood is being competed away, can outweigh any number of hefty economic textbooks.

Intentions, Attitudes, and Principles

Few will disagree that the universal issue sapping the health of the body of humankind is that of disunity. Its manifestations everywhere cripple political will, debilitate the collective urge to change, and poison national and religious relationships. How strange, then, that unity is regarded as a goal to be attained, if at all, in a distant future, after a host of disorders in social, political, economic and moral life have been addressed. Yet the latter are essentially symptoms and side effects of the problem, not its root cause. Why has so fundamental an inversion of reality come to be widely accepted? The answer is presumably because the achievement of genuine unity among peoples whose experiences are deeply at variance is thought to be entirely beyond the capacity of society's existing institutions. While this tacit admission seems an advance over the understanding of processes of social evolution that prevailed a few decades ago, it is of limited practical assistance in responding to the challenge.

Unity is a condition of the human spirit. It is both the cause and the result of a certain attitude, call it intention. Education can support and enhance it, as can legislation, but they can do so only once it emerges and has established itself as a compelling force in social life.

“The primary purpose, the basic objective, in laying down powerful laws and setting up great principles and institutions dealing with every aspect of civilization, is human happiness; and human happiness consists only in securing the peace and well-being of every individual member, high and low alike, of the human race.” (Abdu’l-Baha, The Secret of Divine Civilization, p.60)