In 1975 the G6 met in Paris for the Rambouillet summit. The heads of state of the six countries decided to encourage the process of total liberalisation of capital and privatisation of the economy. Thus, globalisation emerged in different countries.
The technical term appeared in 1983, in a paper by the American writer T. Levitt, and became popular in 1988 through Kinichi Ohmae's work on the planetary strategies of multinational corporations.
The economic and financial field seems to have been the starting point of globalisation. It is in that field that, existentially, the phenomenon, with its pros and cons, has been most clearly experienced.
But globalisation, even as a fundamentally economic and financial phenomenon, has had an impact on social, political, legal and cultural life, manifesting itself both positively and negatively in all these areas.
Different criteria are followed to locate the origin of globalisation in the economic sphere. Globalisation is seen as either a logical extension of the economic and social processes triggered off by the first industrial revolution or as an authentic instance of paradigmatic change.
Within this latter trend some view it as the way to solve the economic problems facing humankind, poverty and starvation being the most pressing. Others regard the deregulation of world economy with varying degrees of scepticism, pointing out the social disintegration and economic instability it has brought about, and even considering it an unattainable utopia.
The globalisation process cannot be approached from the economic standpoint only, but the economic and financial aspects play a leading role in it.
Many scholars have discussed the subject[1]For Latouche it is only natural to see globalisation as a social relation of domination and exploitation on a planetary scale. Bellofiore also says we are witnessing a qualitative and therefore irreversible mutation of world economy, represented by the globalisation of capitalism. Market, production and financing would be so interconnected (and interchangeable) that the very sovereignty of nation states would be compromised. A new regulation of working processes would be operative, typical of post-Fordism. New technologies and global competition would determine an increase in productivity, which would rise so far above the possibility of growth of current production levels that the end of manual labour would be in sight.
To many the real meaning of globalisation lies not in what it creates but rather in what it demolishes: it unstructures not only our life-styles and security but also the organisational forms of business companies and nation states. The logic of capital is being taken away from social control by national communities, and the stable link between territory and wealth would vanish as a consequence. Citizens are willing to make their own decisions rather than depend on those of traditional social actors (trade unions, representative institutions), whose authority and influence are disappearing.
In the globalisation game there are winners and losers, even if it can be considered on the whole as rather positive. Skilled workers are better off, but the quality of life of unskilled workers and of those who suffer the effects of obsolete technology is worsening. Whereas, in the times of Fordism, there was only one way to achieve capitalist development, whereas globalisation opens up to post-national communities different developmental choices, in the shape of models they can adopt with political responsibility and creativity.
It is pointed out that globalisation is, in the first place, about technological knowledge and know-how. Knowledge of how machines work is technological knowledge; making them work efficiently involves technological know-how. What is new is the fact that the knowledge built into a certain technology can be coded only partly and therefore this technology can be only partly copied by others in another place. Most of this knowledge is tacit and, on the other hand, productive activity itself constitutes the most important way of developing technological know-how.
The endless and pressing productivity increase is such that in the so-called advanced societies there is less and less need for work to produce more and more goods and services. This is due, above all, to new technology and organisational innovations. It would become, therefore, less and less possible to achieve the social integration of human beings through manual work, even if this kind of work will continue significantly.
Public financing for the unemployed cannot be a final solution. On the contrary, it would lead to a pragmatic contradiction, despite the correctness of the premises on which it is based and the spirit in which it is proposed. This spirit could even be shared, since it is at the core of a civil economy project that would follow from the solidarity of civil society.
A serious consequence of globalisation is the change, often endogenous and implicit, of the rules of the game. The hypercompetition phenomenon, which constitutes an unwanted consequence of intentional action, tends to become incompatible with the imposition of limitations on the free play of the market forces. The result is a trade-off between competitive advantage position and social security networks. In default of workers' fundamental rights awareness, business companies and economic operators consider social dumping practices as a way to preserve competitive advantage margins on the global market. However, paradoxically enough, market and social control imply each other, in the sense that intervention related to credit redistribution mechanisms serves the development process itself because it ensures its permanence. In our economies, social security networks are still the most effective way to allot resources in order to accomplish goals that society considers unrenounceable, e.g. health care.
The rise in inequality is certainly the phenomenon most frequently associated with the lack of success of globalisation. This has taken place not only at the North-South level, whose difference in growth rate is well-known, but also within the most highly developed countries. Therefore, even if poverty has not risen in absolute terms, it tends to grow in relative terms, which results in job and wage level instability and insecurity for those who lack the skills required by the new technology.
Some writers develop an analytic schema based on the conceptually possible relationships between growth and profit distribution. This theoretical exercise shows how globalisation and social expenditure jointly determine the possible combinations of both variables. A serious globalisation gap would consist in its not being global enough.
Many writers agree on the convenience of distinguishing between globalisation and the economic integration between countries that has taken place in the last two decades. Globalisation is a multidirectional process (social, juridical, political and economic) that cannot be reduced to economic and financial parameters.
The inversion of the relationship between production of wealth and reduction of uncertainty levels leads us to consider the link between new poverty (marginalisation and social exclusion) and globalisation. The current "globalisation of poverty" is unprecedented. Some point to the huge growth of wealth which is currently taking place without a corresponding decrease in poverty. On the contrary, the more the former grows the more the latter expands and so the poverty index would become relative[2]. Distinctions should be drawn between different kinds of poverty and inequality. Evidence shows that globalisation has increased inequality, but this has not been accompanied by a similar increase in poverty. For this poverty is not due to lack of resources but is rather the outcome of policies that have led to high unemployment and a considerable drop in labour-related costs worldwide.
Some economists do not see any "technical solution" to this situation. They suggest that "social struggle movements in the main world regions" should come together in order to achieve "financial disarmament" and replace the neoliberal system.
This would appear as an "all-or-nothing" perspective. In fact, poverty is not a symptom of capitalism's illness but rather proof of its strength, of its accumulation and activation drive. The rich also regret their sacrifice, since they feel driven to acquire, as J. Seabrook points out.
What to some appears as a conquest of globalisation, to others means new bonds that chain them to the local dimension. Just as to some globalisation offers freedom-of-action spaces, to others it means submission to an unwanted destiny. Lack of mobility would be, therefore, the main social stratification factor in the globalisation era: some groups gain mobility in becoming global, while others are stuck at the local level; global groups lay down the rules, while local groups are conditioned by them. Being "local" in a global world is, thus, a sign of inferiority.
In today's big transnational corporations only shareholders are free from spatial restrictions. They can buy and sell anywhere, no special connection with any place being required. None of the other members of the corporation can rise above localisation processes. On the other hand, at shareholder level there is a clear-cut division between social power and social obligations, which is unprecedented in economic history. In the past, captains of industry could not completely escape territorial conditioning; today capital seems to have acquired a new freedom: that of not being responsible for the places where it is used, or concerned for the consequences of that use. As O'Brien puts it, the extraterritorial nature of economic power gives us a glimpse of the "end of geography" rather than the "end of history".
Globalisation, on the other hand, is related to democracy, whose atrophy we are all witnessing with different degrees of awareness. Globalisation drains the power of the nation state, whose autonomy is being compromised today by two interrelated factors, one internal and the other external. The former is the need, stemming from democratic standards, to avoid the imposition of an excessive tax burden on the middle class in order to finance the welfare systems inherited. The latter is the inability of nation states to ignore the expectations of international capital markets, and therefore the governments' need to take global financing credibility into account when considering electoral aspirations. For all these reasons, the governments' capacity to exercise internal sovereignty has turned into a threat to democracy itself. And even though citizens keep on casting their ballots, the power of such votes decreases as sovereignty declines. This explains the decrease in confidence in democratic institutions that can be observed in our societies.
Globalisation is being partially achieved, and its consequences are not always beneficial. Citizens feel subjected to the action of forces over which they have no power. It is therefore necessary to adapt our institutions to protect them from the impact of the manipulation of new world technology knowledge, and even create new ones.
We may be insured against external risk. The insight underlying welfare politics consisted precisely in linking the democratic process to external risk management. But internal risk has more serious consequences because it goes beyond individual countries (ecological risk, biotechnological risk, etc.), and for this reason politics cannot ignore it, since it may lead to its gradual disappearance. This has led some (Giddens) to propose that democracy should become transnational - i.e. globalisation requires globalising responses. Something like a global government would be needed in order to harmonise the interests of world society on a planetary scale. But this (according to Habermas) would presuppose the nation states' abdication of their formal sovereignty, which is utopian and would be unwise. It is the citizens of the transnational civil society that should be addressed, rather than national governments, since the former are the true depositories of culture. In fact, Habermas insists, conflict solving is politicians' main duty, even more so in the case of those still in a position to carry out a "worldwide domestic policy".
The big questions (S. Berger and R. Dore) would be: Will globalisation lead to a universal model of production and distribution? Will social-welfare-relevant national capital survive in a global economy? No doubt local diversity is always present, therefore it will not be easy for countries to converge as far as the institutional relations between economy, state and civil society are concerned. There would rather be a number of market models (R. Boyer), each compatible with a particular culture or people's value system, and the choice of market model would be the primary duty of politics.
The three columns on which state power has been based -economic, military and cultural- have weakened and in some cases disappeared, but only the nation state is in a position to mobilise the resources needed to achieve social order. Therefore, it is not a question of getting rid of the nation state but rather of obsolete conceptions of sovereignty.
At any rate, in this globalisation era, democracy is not a homogeneous practice applicable everywhere. It becomes necessary to acknowledge difference and public deliberation processes. The creation of the political status (Held) of world citizen has been proposed. World citizens would belong to international organisations -and this not only as citizens of particular states- and be represented by a world parliament. The creation of an international court of justice has also been suggested, which would be charged with the defence of human rights, and whose decisions would be binding on national governments. The make-up of the United Nations Security Council would be modified to transform it into an executive capable of acting and reducing the gap between power and authority. The creation of a second UN Assembly, the Peoples' Assembly, has been recommended as well[3].
Ultimately, a new political and economic project is required, because global economic integration cannot move forward in a world of sovereign states. International relations should be established on the basis of supranational entities, i.e. state federations (a global government, as we have pointed out) , in order to avoid the risk of authoritarianism inherent in the new world order brought about by globalisation. In fact nation states (Ricardo) should constitute a kind of permanent datum of political life.
Paradoxically, the more globalisation reduces the nation states' scope for intervention, the more stubbornly economic theory considers the principle of economic sovereignty of the state as unmodifiable. This would partly account for the substantial incapacity of economic theory -as a theory, not as economic analysis- to explain globalisation.
Because of the new knowledge structures and media and of the application of information and telematic technology to production, territorial states have been losing control within their own boundaries. For this reason, issues such as international trade, exchange rates and foreign investment, have been left to intergovernmental negotiation and its derivatives, which will lead to failure. The study of international relations as a discipline is currently in crisis. It still focuses on the state as its unit of analysis and on the problematic of the international society of states.
There is no easy way back to political and market equilibrium at a time when there are no organisations capable of making collective decisions about the global economy. The notion of an "open global society" supporting and orienting the global economy is not easy to consider in its concrete aspects, let alone its ruling principles. "Global society" is not at all synonymous with "global state": it means "civil society", not "political society" - i.e. a space for communication and not for domination[4].
The greatest threat from the legal point of view is the continual expansion of a new "lex mercatoria" which does not stem from traditions or values but from the need to respond to the markets' need for continual enlargement. As disobedience to this lex mercatoria does not lead to the application of sanctions, the demands of new competition condition the development of law rules. Thus the Americanisation of legal institutions that has been taking place these last years in continental Europe is changing not only the course followed by law but also the identity of those who lay down the rules in Europe. On the world scene, nation states are losing their legislative power owing to the presence of new transnational private institutional actors, (law firms and NGO's), whose capacity is continuously increasing. International law as "necessity law" is giving way to global law as "possibility law". The latter is put forward as a premise of the rules regulating the government of the global society, which local legislators should accept and have executed.
The notion of cooperation for development, still at the centre of the debate, postulates permanent forms of dependence, which may be translated into master-slave relationships between the countries willing to cooperate and the areas "in need". Joint development means, instead, recognition of initial differences and transparency of the relationship, which in due course tends to lead back to equilibrium.
Clearly globalisation cannot be unified by law. It involves serious disparities and numerous ambiguities, which make it necessary to encourage the birth of a new social order grounded on power plurality. This genuine polyarchy would differ from pluralism in that it would be not only about number but also about diversity. The constituents of this path could be suggested. In the first place, economic calculation is, in and of itself, compatible with the diversity of individual behaviour and institutional regulations. Determinism, on the other hand, has no solid foundation, because it constitutes a typical product of the "one reason", according to which there would be only one way of being in the global state. It is true that globalisation inexorably tends to narrow down the institutional variety of the different countries. The reasons for this are understandable: free trade rules can ill tolerate cultural heterogeneity, and the distortions stemming from different life styles, welfare systems, educational models, etc. constitute a big obstacle to their dissemination. But it is necessary to counteract this trend, because diversity does not mean alienation or inferiority vis-à-vis the dominant ways of life - on the contrary, it is a sign of richness. Many nations have, at the peak of their historical development, fed on their own diversity, which has enabled them to reap the fruits of civilisation, achieve success and increase their power. This is valid a fortiori at the global level. It is therefore necessary to act in such a way that the selective screening imposed by positional competition will not lead to the annihilation of the weaker varieties. We should bear in mind that safeguarding diversity is the most concrete and effective way to fight the tragic increase in inequality between both countries and social groups. The direct elimination of inequality, regardless of diversity, would not only be ineffective but also increase dependence and frustration.
We wonder whether it might be possible to give up politics as the site where the priorities serving to guide the economy are defined and the consequences of the consideration of human dignity as standard and criterion of freedom are determined. We also wonder whether it is possible to think of the transnational civil society as a spontaneous Hayekian category separated from politics. We wonder as well whether the whole aggregate of particular goods created by the different groups in civil society coincides with the common good understood as the good of all human beings and of the whole human being. The answers to all these questions are negative, which means politics should be acknowledged as an autonomous intervention space where the conditions should be provided for the globalisation process to have direction and value[5].
The principle of horizontal subsidiarity should be applied to the transnational sphere, which would enable civil society organisations to go beyond mere defence and denunciation duties and play well-defined policy-making roles. This presupposes the nation state's willingness to transfer "parts" of their domestic sovereignty to private subjects, such as the NGO's, which may be better equipped to operate in certain spheres. But in analysing the outcome of their action, the fact stands out that, where the interests of national states are not at stake, their capacity to carry out universal projects is much higher than that of intergovernmental bureaucracy. On the other hand, cooperation between public and private actors on the implementation of a mixed regulation model not only reduces the information-related options open to regulators and regulated sectors but is also in a position to generate the so-called selective private incentives. This is to a certain extent what happens with mixed welfare models at the national level.
Embracing subsidiarity clearly involves adopting a new legal framework, since international law does not, as we know, provide for actors other than states.
At the practical level, this path we have called transnational civil society is fraught with difficulties and dangers. It would be naive to imagine that the novelty of this new developmental age would not involve a high conflict rate. The diversity of the interests at stake is enormous. But it constitutes an unrenounceable duty if we want to overcome the anguished rhetoric of unlimited catastrophe, which often ends up in nihilism, and the disillusioned optimism of those who see globalisation as a sort of triumphal march of humankind towards its ultimate fulfilment.
Redistribution policies on a global scale are necessary to address the scandalous problem of poverty (in the absolute sense of the word). In fact we cannot stop at a global regulation policy, which, if adequate with respect to public goods or Pareto's higher measures, is not so with respect to issues such as working standards or the uniform capital requirements of ordinary banks (1998 Basle Agreement). These issues always involve redistribution problems, which cannot be approached within the framework of a regulation theory however refined. The same goes for the harmonisation of environmental and commercial regulations: everybody acknowledges its urgency because poor countries tend to specialise in the production and export of goods causing high environmental degradation. But the fact that the issue of sustainable development constitutes the reverse of the poverty issue will not be understood until a consensus is reached on the main points of a global redistribution policy.
Globalisation has produced remarkable effects on the way of understanding law and living within its framework.
More importance is given to custom, to orality as reproduced by our electronic media.
Responsibility is far away from the effects of action, and in many cases these effects are the result of the devastating addition of microactions, which makes the imposition of liability difficult. The typical model of responsibility grounded on guilt could not apply to its full extent, but to put it aside would mean the loss of one of the legal achievements of civilisation.
Law should be in a position to identify global economic actors and demand transparency and controllability from the markets. It is in this field that the most interesting legal transformations are taking place, such as the development of competition law. Today responsibility tends to become coresponsibility , which is not the sum total of individual responsibility, and individuals are members of a global cooperation system. Effects are, however, produced by a series of causes, which makes the imposition of liability almost impossible.
In the past, liability depended on the link between agent and action and was determined on the basis of contractual logic. Today, the central problem consists in determining who and what should be protected because of their vulnerability in the face of collective actions. The globalisation of the markets and the application of science and technology leads to responsibility for harm to others. This has reached huge and unwieldy proportions.
The development of contract law is leading to risk-taking, risk being the very object of contracts and risk distribution becoming essential. Commutative justice, proper to contracts, is giving way to distributive justice.
Law ethics has not been cast aside, but it tends towards social solidarity ethics rather than individual ethics. The universal ethics of coresponsibility has been proposed as a constitutive foundation of a new way of seeing law. But law is reason and not sheer will. The epistemology of practical reason should be further analysed, as well as its relationship with ethics.
Legal horizons are being broadened, but past achievements should not be discarded. Cosmopolitan law should not be substituted for international law understood as the law encompassing the relations not only between states but also between cultural groups and life styles.
States are still the protagonists of international law, and the great powers play a leading role in international organisations.
The Roman Catholic Church is an undeniable protagonist of international law: popes have been great mediators and contributed to its development. The participation of the Holy See in international organisations such as the United Nations and the European Community has constituted a qualitative contribution to international peace and order.
Despite the growth of economic international law, where the IMF plays such an important role, financial crises with global repercussions could not be avoided: the Mexican, Asian, Russian, Brazilian crises.
Sanctions are still not possible in international law, and the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice only applies to states willing to submit to it. Today, therefore, international law, which is public with respect to both states and persons, is not only real or possible law, but also prospective law.
In a globalised world, law should rationally face bioethical and ecological issues, and deal with the equitable distribution of global resources and the defence of human rights.
It should be taken into account that present-day culture follows the "logic of consensus" in a dialogue that focuses on procedure. It is very difficult, therefore, to start a debate, because there are fundamental values about which we do not agree and many would keep to rules such as "we must not argue about things we will never agree on".
Legal "globalism" is an ideology that would entail a world political order. It might involve planning in order to eliminate cultural and political differences. It might lead to a sort of totalitarianism and thus it would be bound to be rejected.
Law should protect people and regions from strong powers and define criteria of international justice.
The science of the social is in crisis, in spite of being "in fashion", because sociology is made up of fluctuation systems, and therefore its unity is practically impossible to achieve.
The way to avoid the crisis seems to be to consider society as a relation. But this is a sui generis relation. Reductionism should be avoided by means of certain functional prerequisites: a cultural or value model, inner standards, the search for a goal.
Society is a reality stemming from the interaction between two beings, two groups, two "societies".
Relational sociology opens up all the sociological approaches and enables openness and transcendence. This paves the way for relational ethics as social ethics, where relations constitute objective goods in and of themselves and thus are part of the common good.
Global society is full of risks which are related to time rather than space. These risks are wanted, but, paradoxically enough, insurance against them is also sought. For this reason, a risk society is at the same time a society where insurance proliferates and risk becomes a commodity.
Political and civil societies have easy access to information about world actions. They can create positive situations leading to common empowerment, as long as the former comply with the requirements of subsidiarity in the different nation states, regarding:
The state should carry out its duty to:
The productive process now depends on knowledge rather than on natural resources, and a country rich in natural resources may be much poorer than Japan, which is absolutely poor in that respect, but rich in knowledge resources. This shows that knowledge has become what in economic jargon would be called "the fundamental comparative advantage": those who know are wealthy, develop and, ultimately, dominate. This goes for both the knowledge that facilitates communications and the deeper knowledge that enables human beings to act conveniently regarding this globalising course. The role of schooling, training, university education should be reconsidered in view of what is happening.
There are risks that arise quite easily in the economic and financial sphere and affect the sociopolitical and cultural ones. But there are also positive aspects: civil society is no doubt playing more and more important roles and exerting influence on state's and international organisation's decisions through NGO's. These make up networks that have achieved certain aims civil society had been unable to attain, especially regarding fundamental human rights, which constitute the goal of most of them. A new culture is in the making and we have to face it with a culture and an education that do not leave out the human person or the given cultures.
Globalisation relates not only to the objective fact of increasing interdependence, but above all to the subjective cultural aspects. It is therefore necessary to take account of peoples' self-awareness, which entails reflection. Millions are alien to the "global condition", in spite of being affected by the global economy.
Culture is impacted on by globalisation and in turn determines it somehow. No doubt:
There are lights and shadows in the globalisation phenomenon. In dealing with education, we have to discuss moral education. This presupposes intellectual discernment and exercise of the free will, and should be motivated by affectivity in accordance with real values rather than with values sociopolitically agreed on. The former should inspire a culture in accordance with the human person and all his/her dimensions.
The link between societies, created by new technology, influences education. It has developed easily enough because the technological system has grown, driven by an inner force, regardless of any decisive human intervention, in geometric progression. This growth presupposes "machine self-reproduction". The distinction between moral and immoral use of technology is being increasingly weakened and a tendency to create a "technical morality" can be noticed instead.
New technology is not synonymous with globalisation, but is closely linked to it, since the latter is driven and enabled by the former. Not only our actions, but also our thoughts and emotions -the object of human ethical activity- are becoming inseparable from machines, as a consequence of the transformation taking place at the current developmental stage. This is the central issue. The use of machines has made a strong impact on the formation of our thought, i.e. of our cognitive maps, and feelings. New problems have arisen as a result, while thought is lagging behind in different fields. The great amount of information available may lead to disorientation and the risk of not making any decisions - hence the need for choice-guiding discernment criteria.
It is profit rather than goodness that is being currently considered, and happiness, as the end of human acting, is differently conceived. Positional competition has led to the risk of increasing separation between happiness and profit. Since the turn of the 19th. century, economics has been considered the science of happiness. The hegemony of Benthamite utilitarianism led to happiness being related to utility and thought to consist in maximising the latter.
Now profit is a property of relationships between people and things, whereas happiness is a property of relationships between people. A moral problem arises from this. The goal of economics is to increase happiness, since the human being has been created to be happy, as Aristotle maintained, and as the Gospel teaches: "I am giving you life so that you may have plenty of it". The problem is that we have created an economic and productive machine that increases profit without necessarily increasing happiness. It increases not only profit but also uncertainty. It also contributes to the winner-loser polarity, with some winning everything and others losing everything, as we have said.
This mentality can also be observed in families, where competition takes place to "prepare" children for what will happen on the market. This is serious because families have always constituted guiding referents compensating for what happened on the market and within society at large.
Globalisation shows common human activity increasingly involving humanity as a whole. This fact leads us to wonder whether there is anything all human beings have in common, apart from the de facto situation that enables us to receive this "extensive influx", which in some cases might provide a de jure confirmation of this phenomenon. Is there a principle, a reason behind human activity that explains this global extension through which each and every one of us tends to relate to all?
Philosophical anthropology answers there is: the common nature of all human beings.
The notion of human nature has been reduced to pure activity and procedure, but some go "beyond". Prigogine, for instance, focuses on self-organisation, which means activity is directed to an end - he considers the teleology of human acting. Tending towards an end involves coming together and something we intend to reach. Human beings are capable of uniting because we are capable of reaching consensus, of thinking about something together. And, curiously enough, even as technological breakthroughs related to "human being generation" are taking place, ecology returns to nature as a datum to be respected.
Philosophical anthropology's task is to start from phenomenological data and go "from the phenomenon to its foundation". What is the foundation of the phenomenon we are discussing? We could answer, as Prigogine does, "self-organisation". But, why is it that we all organise ourselves in the same way or a similar way? What hypothesis or reality supports this analogous way of acting or this rather common intelligence by which we move to a common end by means of common acting? Would there not be a way of being that makes human beings act in a common way?
Whereas some suggest the notion of nature as a working hypothesis, we hold the thesis that human nature is a "way of being" constituting an identity that enables all human beings to act in a common way because it is a common acting principle.
Thus human persons participating in this nature (acting principle) are subjects to whom a common activity is attributed. We become aware of this in perceiving a multiplicity of empirical elements but one reality, "something" that appears as different from something else and cannot be confused with the latter or with we who perceive it. There are different ways of participating in the same nature. The common activity is relational, i.e. the subject to whom it is attributed participates in a certain way of being with a dimension proper to it that requires his/her relating to other beings in order to exercise his/her individuality and personality. These other beings are, in the first place, those that share his/her nature, and then societies, geographical environments, situations, the sociocultural context.
Some recent anthropological currents have approached the subject of rationality and even of freedom, which they have come close to recognising. They seem to acknowledge some natural referent and seek objectivity amidst relativism, based on social consensus spatially and temporally limited. They enable a certain objective criterion of human nature that sheds light on globalisation.
Philosophy should be distinguished no doubt from positive science and from the science involving human sociability, which is called "social science". But no doubt science in general -especially social science- has had something to do with the meaning of the notion of nature in philosophical anthropology.
Movement -capacity actualisation- affects human beings, to whom activity is attributed, who participate in a common nature and have, therefore, a common end.
At the empirical level we observe a variety of individuals, of subjects sharing a nature and tending towards a stable end in an orderly way. Order in being is the reason behind order in acting, because becoming presupposes being.
The empirical datum is a beginning, but for it to make sense we have to rise to the metaphysical plane through the logical plane. The human mind speaks of unity but also of multiplicity, since the latter is related to oneness.
The way human beings relate to each other is not univocal - not all of us relate in the same way, but rather analogously.
Those who share human nature are related. A way of being is a "mode", which means it is not the whole being, the whole existence, but a part of it. We are, therefore, finite beings supporting one another by communicating our respective way of being, on which our interrelationship is grounded, through participation. This interrelationship means "having a part of" and "communicating something or receiving something" by participation. Participation manifests itself through the analogy of human interaction. But it transcends interhuman analogy, since this analogy is possible for human beings because our spiritual specificity enables us to go beyond it. There is an analogy that relates each human being to the Absolute Subsisting Being. On this analogy every relation is founded, and from it human dignity stems. This analogy arises from the Absolute Being's giving the human being his/her being and way of being by participation. This is called first participation, and it enables second participation, which takes place between created beings.
It is also necessary, therefore, to consider the being of sociocultural reality, which leads to a third kind of participation. This relates to human acting, which enables human beings to produce culture in a wide variety of areas: technological, social, political, economic, artistic. Sociocultural reality is the relational context of the human person and therefore of human nature. Human nature, in turn, prevents reductionism and the extremes proper to all social acting, i.e. individualism-socialism, liberalism-statism. Sooner or later these extremes will conflict with that nature in its social dimension. Human acting must necessarily refer to human nature.
As long as this reference to human nature is preserved, our personal dignity and relational character will be safeguarded. On the other hand, human beings are required to face the globalisation phenomenon positively, since it is part of our common nature.
From a philosophical and ethical point of view all acting is directed to some good, since the metaphysical is given to us, and in that sense value and being coincide. But if we stay at the metaphysical level we could fall into some kind of determinism with respect to value. What is worthwhile to each human being is concrete, and this concrete value that has to be freely chosen here and now is presented by sensibility and the intellect simultaneously.
This synthesis manifests itself through the choice of concrete values. These should relate, on the one hand, to the principles of order, of the nature of reality and the human being and his/her acting within it. On the other hand, those values should relate, accordingly, to what is most properly human about human acting. This most properly human aspect is the free choice through which the human being decides to shape his/her own personality according to what s/he deems valuable here and now, so that s/he may achieve that order, which will satis-fy him/her.
Today, in a globalised way it is important to show that the ethical standards of human acting are not an abstraction. Translated into a value system, they motivate human action; they are not circumstantial or empty, but point concretely and existentially to the ultimate end, the absolute value.
This absolute value shapes human beings' world-view, which is communicated to us by our own culture. It consists of the knowledge, valuation and vital commitment that will ultimately guide our singular concrete life. We both have inherited and shape this world-view. The consideration of any of the elements of this world-view, i.e. God, the human being and the natural and cultural environment, as an absolute, may correspond to or lead to a distortion of the order of reality. Either the requirements of nature are complied with or God, the human being or the natural environment as such or as "cultivated" by human beings, i.e. the cultural milieu, is denaturalised. Globalisation has to embrace different world-views with their respective richness, i.e. different cultures, lest it should conflict with human nature's being and acting, which sooner or later will make its presence felt.
Now, as we have said, human acting is not abstract or essentialist, but existential. Apart from principles and foundational normative values, a constant and concrete option is at stake, which is exercised in time and space in the face of each reality. This individual option enables each human being to shape both himself/herself as a person and his/her regional culture. It also makes it possible for human beings and cultures to enter the global world, without loss of identity.
The essential values of the human person should be taken into account in order to lessen the risks of globalisation and ensure its advantages.
Religious communities should self-critically consider today to what extent they could, with their current structures, serve as a sort of example or model in order to achieve a globalisation that is fair to humanity, less risky and more advantageous. This is also important to the credibility of their endeavours to achieve a human globalisation.
Churches should practise a life-style and an economic style in harmony with the principles of social ethics, such as justice and solidarity, which should also apply to their ecclesiastical undertakings. This is important for them to keep their freedom.
Pluralisation occurs at the religious, cultural, national and ethnic level. This demands enormous attention because the human being's capacity is objectively limited and neither politics nor law seem to be able to give a definite answer to the demands of globalisation. A world-view -we have been taking notes- is required.
The Universal Church should be the model of globalisation, aiming at the goal set by John Paul II. "To the globalisation of profit and abject poverty we should oppose a globalisation of solidarity", since "the elements of society should cooperate to encourage globalisation at the service of the whole person and of all persons", as we have said. Only the Church manifests and projects this because it brings a rich heritage from the past, which increases the potential of the present and shows the way to the future. And it does not curtail either history or geography, but rather embraces them all at the same time, with both their particular and universal features.
The religious dimension refers to the human being as God's creature and child, who considers the other human beings his/her siblings. It is, therefore, the most sensitive dimension of the human being, which unites his/her own being with God's and with the others' needs. On the other hand, the right to religious freedom is the foundation of all other human rights because it dignifies the human being in his/her transcendence and, therefore in his/her immanence.
The Roman Catholic Church has always been the only universal institution, and as such has always been able to speak to human beings, in all our diversity, and unify that diversity into a whole. Its two-thousand-year-old experience has made it an "expert in globalisation", because it is an expert "in humanity"[6].
Therefore today we have to seek from her as well the elements required to increase the advantages of globalisation and lessen its risks.
Referencias:
[1] From the abundant literature on the subject we have selected: R. Papini, A. Pavan and S. Zamagni (eds.), Abitare la società, ESI, 1997; D. Archibugi, G. Imperatori (eds.) Economia globale e innovazione. La sfida dell'industria italiana, Donzelli, Rome, 1997; J. Mander, E. Godsmith, (eds.), Globalismo. L'alternativa strategica alla globalizzazione, Arianna Ed., Bologna, 1998; N. Acocella, (ed.) Globalizzazione e stato sociale, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1999; M. Arcelli (ed.) Globalizzazione dei mercati e orizzonti del capitalismo, Laterza, Rome, 1998; R. Bellofiore (ed.), Il lavoro di domani. Globalizzazione finanziaria, ristrutturazione del capitale e mutamenti della produzione, Ed. Biblioteca F. Serantini, Pisa, 1998. (Volver al texto)
[2] Cfr. A. Sen, Desarrollo y Libertad, Ed. Planeta, Barcelona, 2000. (Volver al texto)
[3] Cfr. J. Seagall, A UN Second Assembly in F. Barnaby ed., Building a more Democratic United Nations, Frank Cass & Co, London 1991. (Volver al texto)
[4] A. Giddens, Il mondo che cambia, come la globalizzazione ridisegna la nostra vita, Italian translation by R. Falcioni, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2000. (Volver al texto)
[5] Cfr. F. Viola, Società civile e società politica tra cooperazione e conflitto, en Nova et Vetera, 1 (1999) 3-4, pp. 29-44. (Volver al texto)
[6] The Church maintains that market economics needs to walk on two feet: the logic of profit and the logic of reciprocity. This can be seen in two Renaissance writers: in Saint Bernardine of Siena's fundamental work, Predice Volgari, written in 1427, and in Saint Antoninus of Florence, who also makes interesting contributions on economics. In this way the Church has made its contribution throughout time and space. (Volver al texto)
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