Three Key Issues for Davos

I. Capitalism vs. Corporatism in an Era of Globalization and the Environmental "Tipping Point".

Transnational corporations with a natural tendency to find their lowest level of accountability challenge the world community of nation states for hegemony. It is not that transnationals are inherently bad (although some may be), but rather that their inexorable demands of growth and profitabilty are not designed to serve the interests of the general populace, and will work against it if necessary. To the extent that they begin to exercise absolute power over national governments, as they have been allowed to do under the Bush/Cheney regime, they combine their economic power with the coercive power of the state to serve their own interests. Despite their rhetoric to the contrary, this "Corporatism" opposes free market capitalism in search of guaranteed profits.

The BRIC countries, that are also the major populations of the world, are undergoing rapid industrialization and modernization just at the time that the earth's environment hangs in precarious balance. "First world" profligacy undermines its moral authority to press BRIC and others for sustainable, non-polluting development. The Bush/Cheney regime has set the world back at least 8 years in developing enforceable consensus on climate change whose impact, according to the US Pentagon Report, is likely to dwarf terrorism as a major threat to peace and stability.

Globalization that has fostered BRIC development through free markets, has, for the US, meant the hollowing of its middle class. A strong middle class is essential for democracy and stability. Classical free market theory that teaches that wage imbalances will self-correct over time miss 2 essential points: a). The enormous populations in BRIC ensure that such corrections ( i.e., BRIC's standard of living rising so that wages rise to meet US wages) will be many generations in coming, and b) Once BRIC reaches our living standard, why would the jobs ever move back? They will, at that time, exist where the major markets are.

Davos should ask if long term health, wealth and stability are best achieved by unchecked, unregulated increasingly powerful transnational corporatism, and increasingly weak nation states unwilling to assert the interests of their people and the planet. If not, then how should this trend be reversed, and how much the restoration of true free markets would provide the solution? What is the role of the nation-state, and groups of nation-states, in effecting the necessary changes?

II. Militarism and Violence as Primary Instruments of Policy

Increasingly violent islamic fundamentalism, fueled by real and perceived humilitiation, with demagogues such as bin Laden there to exploit it, is met by increasingly divisive and, in some cases, religiously fueled politics in the developed world. The United States' doctrine of pre-emption that promotes militarism ahead of negotiation and diplomacy, represents a reversal of Clausewitz's famous dictum that war is the continuation of diplomacy by other means. The location of the world's vast oil reserves in the midst of the islamic world not only raises the stakes, but also provides an additional source of grievance, the claimed exploitation of the islamic world's resources for the west's development.

In 2002 a United Nations task force, composed entirely of Arab scholars, delivered a treatise on the problems of backwardness in the Islamic world. Although they defined the problem as deficits in "freedom", "knowledge", and "the status of women", their explanations were more nuanced. For example, they point out that it is a deficit in ALL 3 that leads to backwardness, not just one or two, and suggest Singapore as an example without much freedom, but otherwise successful on the human development index. Most instructive, and not in the report itself, is the observation about the growing role of religion in civil society:

"From their schooldays onwards, Arabs are instructed that they should not defy tradition, that they should respect authority, that truth should be sought in the text and not in experience. Fear of fawda (chaos) and fitna (schism) are deeply engrained in much Arab-Islamic teaching. "The role of thought", wrote a Syrian intellectual "is to explain and transmit...and not to search and question. Such tenets never held back the great Arab astronomers and mathematicians of the Middle Ages. But now, it seems, they hold sway, discouraging critical thought and innovation and helping to produce a great army of young Arabs, jobless, unskilled and embittered, cut off from changing their own societies by democratic means. Islam at least offers them a little self-respect. With so many paths closed to them, some are now turning their dangerous anger on the western world." ( Economist, July 4, 2002)

At Davos you should focus on how the developed world can help address those problems recognizing that anything that suggests a "western" influence will be considered tainted. Simultaneously, Davos should discuss how to handle those who believe in absolute truth within the context of civil societies outside the Arab world, and what can be done to reduce the knee-jerk reaction of meeting absolutism with absolutism.

This is all the more critical since today's health, learning and communication technologies provide real opportunities to lift billions of people from the scourges of infectious and chronic diseases, from ignorance, and from the barriers of geography. Davos should discuss how the world's nations and individuals can help one another focus on fulfilling that potential rather than armed conflict, increasing and spreading the pie rather than fighting over the current-sized pie.

III. Increasing Isolation in an Increasingly Interconnected World

The internet, wireless technology, and hand-held devices provide everyone, in far-flung areas of the world, access to one another, and to the most up-to-date information and analysis. On the other hand, by reducing peoples' need to meet, to congregate, to know one another, those same technologies may encourage people to retreat to natural comfort zones among those like them, instead of those who are different. Like only children, they may find it more difficult to negotiate, to compromise, and to understand, respect and honor their differences.

Davos should address how the benefits of modern communication technology can be exploited without creating the unintended consequences of encouraging disintegration into smaller and smaller group identities.

Thank you again for the chance to interject some questions into the Davos discussions. These questions are, of course, not amenable to easy answers; but, unless the world's leaders start taking them seriously, the chances of making any progress recede, and the likelihood of real catastrophe increases. Moreover, none are susceptible to solution by any one nation, or group of nations; they require first the discussion and then the concerted efforts of everyone.

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