THE FIELD OF GLOBAL ETHICSAS BOTH ETHICS OF GLOBALIZATION AND

ETHICS UNDER GLOBALIZATION

GLOBALIZATION?

Globalization is a process of interaction and integration among the people, companies, and governments of different nations, a process driven by international trade and investment and aided by information technology.

This process has effects on the environment, on culture, on political systems, on economic development and prosperity, and on human physical well-being in societies around the world

WHAT IS

HISTORICAL

ORIGINS Colonial times are often referred by historians as proto-globalization

British East India Company is sometimes regarded as the first multinational corporation

After World War II, the creation of institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank helped to the development of economic globalization

Technology in our days has driven cultural globalization

  a generalized environmental crisis   the one-sidedness (biased and limited) of ‘economic globalization’   war   human rights   the spreading of migration   world hunger and poverty   fair trade   the growth of media dictated mass consumption coupled with earth-devastating

waste-patterns

  human population

MAJOR GLOBAL

ISSUES

  a generalized environmental crisis   the one-sidedness (biased and limited) of ‘economic globalization’   war   human rights   the spreading of migration   world hunger and poverty   fair trade   the growth of media dictated mass consumption coupled with earth-devastating

waste-patterns

  human population

MAJOR GLOBAL

ISSUES

THE ONE-SIDEDNESS OF ‘ECONOMIC GLOBALIZATION’

GLOBALIZATION AND ECONOMIC

INJUSTICE Globalization is a natural consequence of capitalism.

Wealth and income gaps are growing inside countries and between countries

The richest 20% of the world as a whole enjoyed a 12% increase in their incomes from 1988 to 1993 while the poorest half saw no growth at all and the poorest 5% suffered a 25% fall.

The main problem rests more with developing countries resisting market mechanisms and retaining protectionist policies.

But, it is also true that today’s management of globalization compounds economic polarities.

GLOBALIZATION AND ECONOMIC

INJUSTICE In practice there is not one market of international trade, but many.

Some of this markets are liberalized to become truly global markets.

But there are other markets that tell different stories.

There are markets that haven’t been opened up, and are often subject to tougher restrictions than before.

Liberalizing some markets while retaining or raising barriers in other markets drives today’s polarization.

THE PROBLEM ISN’T WITH GLOBALIZATION PER SE, BUT WITH SELECTIVE GLOBALIZATION.

WORLD HUNGER AND POVERTY

  Almost half the world — over 3 billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day.

  The GDP of the 41 Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (567 million people) is less than the wealth of the world’s 7 richest people combined.

  Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn’t happen.

  1 billion children live in poverty (1 in 2 children in the world). 640 million live without adequate shelter, 400 million have no access to safe water, 270 million have no access to health services. 10.6 million died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (or roughly 29,000 children per day).

SOME FACTS ABOUT

POVERTY

CAUSES OF POVERTY

  Structural Adjustment  This has required poor countries to reduce spending on things like health, education and development, while debt repayment and other economic policies have been made the priority. In effect, the IMF and World Bank have demanded that poor nations lower the standard of living of their people.

  Corruption   Leaders from rich countries tell poor countries that aid and loans will only be given when they show they are stamping out corruption. But, the rich countries are often active in the largest forms of corruption in those poor countries, and many economic policies they prescribe have exacerbated the problem.

  Food Dumping (Aid)   Free, subsidized, or cheap food, below market prices undercuts local farmers, who cannot compete and are driven out of jobs and into poverty, further slanting the market share of the larger producers. In the past few decades, more powerful nations have used this as a foreign policy tool for dominance rather than for real aid.

THE LOCAL

MULTIPLIER EFFECT

Buying local products at locally owned businesses keeps money circulating closer to where you spend it.

For every $1 spent at a local business…

For every $1 spent at a corporate chain…

45 cents are reinvested locally

Only 15 cents are reinvested locally

This creates a ripple effect as those businesses and their employees in turn spend your money locally.

Corporate chains send most of your money out of your town.

THE LOCAL

MULTIPLIER EFFECT

The local effect of that spending

If everyone in a community spends a greater percentage locally, the multiplier effect turns that into big bucks for the local economy. For example, increasing local spending from 50 to 80 percent more than doubles the local effect—from $200 to $500.

Increasing percentages of $100 spent locally

THE LOCAL

MULTIPLIER EFFECT

A study by the Leopold Center found that 16 common crops that grow in Iowa travel an average of 1,494 miles to reach chain groceries there.

By buying local goods, you maximize your money’s impact and minimize fuel use and CO2 production. Produce from the supermarket travels up to 92 times farther than produce grown locally.

Bought from local growers, they travel only 56 miles.

HUMAN POPULATION

WAR

War is a behavior pattern of organized violent conflict, typified by extreme aggression, societal disruption, and high mortality.

ARMED CONFLICTS

Major wars, 1000+ deaths per year Other conflicts

MAP OF COUNTRIES WITH ONGOING

when man is seen more as a producer or consumer of goods than as a subject who produces and consumes in order to live, then economic freedom loses its necessary relationship to the human person and ends up by alienating and oppressing him.

John Paul II

WILL GLOBALIZATION EVER TRULY SERVE THE GOOD OF ALL?

WILL IT BE ETHICAL?