Alojamiento en Hoteles OradeaWe live today in an axial period of history, with major changes underwayin all the world's systems, including our economic system. The global flow of information,goods, services, and money, and the integration of national economies in a worldwideeconomy, has happened at a speed, on a scale, and with social impacts unprecedented inhuman history.

Money is now less like coins and paper currencies, and more like protons,electrons, and neutrons. It has taken the form of electronic impulses that circulateinstantly around the world. The flow of economic power away from nation-states ispalpable; some corporations now have more wealth and power than most nation-states, yetare not subject to the same democratic accountability that binds most nationalgovernments.

If aggregate economic growth is one’s primary criterion of humanwell-being, this trend may not be a cause of alarm for some. The United Nations Conferenceon Trade and Development's ERROR MSGWorld Investment Report tells us that in the twentiethcentury, the global economy multiplied 17 times, from an annual output of $2.3 trillion in1900 to $39 trillion in 1998. (In the three years from 1995 to 1998, economic growthexceeded that of the 10,000 years from the beginning of agriculture until 1900.) Percapita income multiplied from $1,500 to $6,600. Life expectancy increased from 35 to 66years. More food was produced than ever before. Coupled with economic growth, advancementsin science and technology made it possible for more people than ever to live longer,healthier, and more productive lives.

But the benefits of this growth were not evenly distributed. While onefifth of the world population now live better lives than ever, another fifth struggle tosurvive with little or no access to safe water or adequate nutrition, shelter, education,or employment. This gap is compounded by poor countries' foreign debt, whose effectsinclude not only hunger, disease, and illiteracy at home, but violent conflict and refugeeflows affecting people in creditor countries as well.

Clearly, globalization is an urgent topic in many parts of the world. Itis also a volatile one, as recent protests in Seattle and Washington, DC, havedemonstrated. In those protests, people from a wide diversity of cultures and backgrounds,representing various civil-society groups, pitted themselves against the political andeconomic powers that were negotiating a new global trade order. Both groups — thoseinside and those on the streets outside–represent forms of globalization. Those onthe streets represented new global forces emerging from below; those inside assumed aglobalization from above. Both were pressing for new forms of governance, including globalgovernance. For the most part, those on the streets sought more democratic participationin the global forces and decisions affecting the well-being of people and of the Earth onwhich we all depend. Those inside were focused on the well-being of large, corporateentities, national economies, and competition for markets, resources, andbalance-of-trade.

Arnheim cheap hotelsQuestions of global governance have become a central challenge at the dawnof this new millennium. Symptoms of breakdown are evident at every level of life --economic, political, cultural, ecological, and spiritual. Old systems that were created toserve the needs of traditional civilizations of the past, and the state-centric system ofthe modern world, can no longer respond effectively to the challenges of rapidglobalization and increasing global interdependence; new systems capable of meeting thesechallenges in humane and effective ways are not yet in place.

Those of us living in these times are called to new levels of creativityand cooperation to forge a path through our present confusion and uncertainties toward amore a viable and humane future. We are challenged to be the creative minority of whichthe historian Arnold Toynbee wrote — people who, from deep insight, commitment, andmotivation, develop a new civilization from the ashes of the old.

Achieving economic justice includes redressing the negative effects ofglobalization and distributing its benefits more equitably among all people and areas ofthe world. In society's evolution from isolated clans and tribes to city-states andkingdoms to nation-states, each change included changes in political structures, with thedevelopment of a public sector at increasingly larger levels to manage the problems andopportunities resulting from increasing interdependence. The larger units did notnecessarily eliminate local polities; more often they added a new layer to manage problemsthat could not be dealt with at smaller levels. Today, the continued evolution of societyrequires the development of democratic forms of global governance to deal with globalinterdependence. These new forms may involve a greatly reformed UN or new globalorganizations; they will require nation-states to pool and delegate some sovereignty forthe sake of the greater good. Life in a global community requires new forms of governance-- humane, effective, participatory public structures -- at all levels where decisionsneed to be made about our shared future: local, national, regional, and global. While asmany decisions as possible should be made at local or national levels, some problemsrequire a global polity and a global public sector delegated with sufficient authority toact effectively for the global common good on issues beyond the competence of individualnation-states.

Yet no matter how comprehensive and wise these structures of governanceare, it may be difficult to enforce laws imposed from above if they have not becomeaccepted norms in our hearts and minds. Inner laws are sometimes just as strong as, orstronger than, the laws codified by states, and may be a necessary precursor to effectivelaw under political authority. It is imperative, then, that we develop norms or laws inour own hearts and minds that reflect a sense of shared responsibility for the common goodof all our neighbors in the global community.

This will require still other forms of globalization -- forms that mustmatch, exceed, and ultimately mitigate the negative forms. These other forms include aglobalization of human consciousness, worldviews, wisdom, ethics, and moral codes, so thatwe see and act for the global common good. They include a globalization of humancompassion, growing from the global extension of our answers to the questions, who is myneighbor? Who my sister, my brother? Who my mother, my father? Who is my child? Theyinclude a globalization of ever-deepening awareness, love, and care of our living Earth,from whom our own lives emerged and upon whose integrity and diversity the lives of futuregenerations depend. They include a globalization of spirit--an enlargement of our verysouls.

Learning how to open our hearts, minds, and souls to all creation andbecome one human family in the larger community of life is a process some have begun, butmost of us still have a long way to go. This practice requires individual commitment and awillingness to jump into the givenness of our times and lives in personal and collectiveways. It requires that we not sink into despair or cynicism, but use these times as aspringboard for transformation, growing from what we are into what our deepest longing andknowing draws us to become.