[E-rundbrief] Info 49 - Nicanor Perlas: Globalization, Post-Materialism, Threefolding
Matthias Reichl
mareichl at ping.at
Mo Okt 27 01:03:54 CET 2003
E-Rundbrief - Info 49
Bad Ischl, 26.10.2003
Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
www.begegnungszentrum.at
=========================================
(Biographie - siehe Info 38!)
GLOBALIZATION, POST-MATERIALISM AND THREEFOLDING[1]
By Nicanor Perlas[2]
Abstract
The September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and the Battle
of Genoa in July 2001 in Italy captures the present power configuration of
the world. Three worldviews are struggling for control over the future of
the planet. These three worldviews are characterized and labeled, broadly,
as Jihad, McWorld, and Civitas. McWorld is the world of the dominant
materialistic modernity that governs the world. Jihad is the fundamentalist
response of tradition, not just Islam, to McWorld. The world of Civitas is
the world of post-materialism seeking a more spiritual approach, different
from McWorld and Jihad, to world challenges.
An elite form of globalization associated with McWorld has taken
over the planet with disastrous consequences. This elite form of
globalization is forcing humanity to ask fundamental questions about the
nature and meaning of human existence, about societies and civilizations,
and about the nature of nature and humanity's relationship with it. The
questions of McWorld cannot be answered from the consciousness of McWorld
nor Jihad. It requires a post-material consciousness, perspective and
action to address the problems spawned by elite globalization today.
Fortunately, there is a massive awakening throughout the world today
in connection with a more spiritual approach and response to the challenge
of McWorld.
Ronald Inglehart documents the broad contours of this new awakening.
Paul Ray details the identity dynamics in the construction of new
identities within Civitas and the expression of these re-framed identities
as the new social movements. Thus we see that these value shifts are not
only active in the head. They also find behavioral and social expression in
the world as new social movements and, ultimately, as civil society.
With this development, postmaterialism has entered a new phase in
its expression in the world. For the values may be there but, without the
freeing of the spiritual energies latent in cultural life, the values of
Civitas will remain unrealized in society. With the rebirth and activism of
civil society, comes the effective liberation of cultural life from the
domination of economic and political powers (and their media and academic
allies in cultural life) driving elite globalization.
The Battle of Seattle and the Battle of Genoa is understood in this
way; that, from now on, it is no longer the economic and political
institutions of McWorld, nor the cultural institutions of Jihad that will
shape globalization. The cultural institutions of Civitas, expressed in its
civil society, now also becomes its own effective force in world affairs
and provides an alternative mode of cultural presence as compared with the
fundamentalist culture of Jihad which aims to dominate society in its own
way. Global civil society is now a third global force joining the state and
the market in a tri-polar struggle for the future of the world.
Jihad is the cultural equivalent of McWorld's economy. Both seek to
dominate all aspects of social life, albeit in different ways. The civil
society of Civitas seeks to avoid both these extremes. It recognizes the
importance of the respective autonomy of culture, polity, and the economy
and strives to find a meaningful integration of these different realms of
society towards the attainment of comprehensive and authentic sustainable
development.
This activism of the global civil society of Civitas is resulting in
introduction of a new social process potent enough to transform the elite
globalization of McWorld. This process is threefolding. In essence,
threefolding means the interaction of the three autonomous realms of
society (culture, polity, and economy), through any of its three
institutional powers or three key institutions (civil society, government,
and business, respectively), to advocate for or to achieve genuine or
comprehensive sustainable development.
The paper provides an extensive discussion of the scope of
threefolding, the kinds and phases of threefolding, its relationship to
worlds of Jihad, Civitas and McWorld, and its tremendous potential for
realizing the spiritual culture of Civitas in all realms of society.
The paper concludes with a picture. As humanity enters into the 21st
century, it finds itself engaged in a battle for three different kinds of
future: the world of Jihad, McWorld, and Civitas. This is the battle among
the fundamentalist world of Jihad, the materialistic globalization process
of McWorld, and the new, post-modern spirituality of Civitas. No one can
predict the outcome of this battle which will be intense. The outcome will
depend to what extent humanity can wake up to its post-material potentials,
incorporate the positive elements of Jihad and McWorld, and consciously
work with vigilance to attain the world of Civitas.
o O o
The Setting
Globalization, its nature and its direction, is one of the most
contentious issues today. The conflict over globalization is not only
philosophical and scientific, existing not only in the halls of academe and
the universities. This conflict is writ large in the structure and dynamics
of the world as different worldviews of globalization compete for the
minds, hearts, and hands of billions of human beings throughout the planet.
This conflict has deep relevance for the emerging discourse on
modernity and post-materialism.[3] One of the contending worldviews that
aim to shape globalization and the future of the earth is increasingly a
post-materialist worldview, one that I call, Civitas, for reasons to be
explained below. But beyond its deep and concrete relevance to the
post-materialist discourse, we need to understand what is at stake in the
conflict of worldviews that stirs the planet today. For what we envision,
individually and globally, so we shall be.
September 11 and the Battle of Genoa
Before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on New York City, one
of the most debated events in world affairs was the tragic Battle of Genoa
A little over two months before September 11, the Presidents and/or Prime
Ministers of the powerful G-8 countries met in the Italian city of Genoa to
discuss how to further advance their neo-liberal economic and materialistic
version of modernity. They were surrounded by around three hundred thousand
(300,000) activists who were protesting G-8 policies and initiatives in the
world.
The vast majority of the protestors was peaceful and espoused active
non-violent resistance against G-8 policies and programs. However, the
protests ended up in violence and a major tragedy. The Italian police shot
and killed a young protestor. Millions watching the television were
horrified to see how the police then ran their vehicle over the dead body
of the young activist. The police said that a small group of violent
anarchists provoked the police. Activists said the police, pretending to be
activists, infiltrated the ranks of the protestors and provoked the
violence themselves.[4]
The Battle of Genoa was only one of a series of massive street
demonstrations that have rocked the normally placid world of decision
makers in such institutions as the World Economic Forum (WEF), the World
Bank), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Trade Organization
(WTO), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the UN Commission on Trade and
Development (UNCTAD), and others. The world has seen the Battle of Seattle,
the Battle of Washington DC, of Melbourne, of Prague, of Quebec, and other
major cities in the different continents of the world.
The tragedy of the Battle of Genoa merely emphasized the new phase
that the debate over globalization had reached. Thousands of activists
clearly sent a very powerful signal that they were ready to die for their
values, for their version of a different planet, one that, among others, is
more spiritual, free, just, equitable, sustainable, compassionate, and
tolerant of cultural differences, and based on an economy of solidarity,
instead of competition.
Shortly thereafter, the tragedy of September 11 struck. Terrorists
hijacked two airplanes and smashed them into the twin towers of the World
Trade Center, symbol of American economic power. A related group of
terrorists hijacked another plane and plowed it through the Pentagon,
symbol of American political power. The attacks on these two icons of US
economic and political power in the world killed over five thousand
Americans. Shortly therefore, George W. Bush, Jr., President of the United
States, declared war on terrorism all over the world.
The September 11 tragedy surfaced another key front in the battle of
worldviews that has engulfed the world. This time traditional and religious
fundamentalism challenged the prevailing and dominant materialistic
neo-liberal economic conception of modernity
Whose World: Jihad, McWorld, or Civitas?
These two events, occurring almost simultaneously from the
perspective of history, clearly illustrate the three world views and the
attendant value systems that are waging "war" against each other for the
future of the planet.[5]
I must emphasize that these three worldviews have their own internal
diversity within them. And that, also, in the case of one world view
(Civitas), it is possible to find elements in the other world views that
are of value to it. However, there is enough of a convergence on basic
principles that one can characterize the different perspectives into the
three world views that are now contending for the future of the planet.
The September 11 tragedy dramatically displayed the fault lines
between the world of "Jihad" and "McWorld". This is the clash between the
world of tradition and religious fundamentalism versus the materialistic
modernity of the world economy, respectively. Barber (1996) already pointed
to the deep conflict between these two world views and approaches to the
world.[6]
"Jihad" refers to any worldview that would resist the onslaught of
the modern global economy by reasserting the primacy of religious and
indigenous traditions. In its resistance, "Jihad" often takes the form of
"fundamentalism" where there is often a one-sided exposition and practice
of tradition in its attempt to resist the modern world. Thus "Jihad",
although it comes from the Islamic word for "holy war" is not only about
fundamentalist Islam. It is also about fundamentalist Christianity,
Hinduism, and so on. It refers to any form of fundamentalist reaction of
the onslaught of the modern world economy. Because "Jihad" feels overly
oppressed by modernity, it often feels the need to resort to violence to
protect its world and to gain the attention of the world.
McWorld refers to the worldview implicit in the modernity of
neo-liberal economics and liberal democracy. The term, "McWorld" is derived
from the MacDonald fast food outlets found in most countries in the world.
However, the MacDonald food chain is only one of many such western economic
powerhouses that dot the world, a symbol of McWorld. It is a powerful
testimony to the success of McWorld and its neo-liberal materialistic
worldview, before which the different civilizations and religions of the
world must now bow before its power.
McWorld is the world of Francis Fukuyama (The End of History) and
Thomas Friedman (The Lexus and the Olive Tree)[7] There are many variations
within this worldview. However they are inwardly unified in their radical
belief in the reality of a competitive "free market" that can churn out
endless and cheap products and services to satisfy the demands of
hyper-consumerism that has been created by the billions of dollars of
advertisements of the believers of this "free" market. They also believe
that liberal democracy is the best form of governance despite widespread
criticisms of its failure and the need to distinguish between formal and
effective democracy.[8]
The Battle of Genoa and its predecessor battles starting in the
Battle of Seattle revealed the other major fault line in the battle of
worldviews for the shape of tomorrow. This time it was the battle between
McWorld and "Civitas". I derive the word "Civitas" from global "civil
society" that has been active in the various battles against the forces of
materialistic modernity in the past two and a half years and beyond.
Civitas is the world view of tens of millions around the world who
are alienated from both McWorld and Jihad. They see McWorld as the rough
and tough world of social Darwinian competition where the rich get richer,
the poor get poorer, the powerful more powerful, and the weak more
oppressed. They have little faith in what they see as the mania for
"economic growth"
At the same time, Civitas is not attracted to the fundamentalist
world of Jihad which they see as a repression of human individuality and
freedom and as a return to the past which can no longer exist in a world of
globalization dominated by transnational corporations and their elite
partners in politics and culture.
Civitas criticizes the many kinds of "undesirable forms of
growth"[9] that accompany the economic growth of McWorld. The McWorld's
form of globalization, from the perspective of Civitas, is "elite
globalization"[10] which benefits a few and harms the many.
They criticize McWorld for mass producing "ruthless" growth which
increases the disparity between the rich and the poor. Ruthless growth
means that the income of around 400 billionaires is equivalent to the
income of around 3 billion of the worlds poor. Civitas criticizes the
"jobless" growth in McWorld, where automation and the migration of
factories to cheaper locations is displacing millions of workers.
Civitas is also concerned about the "voiceless" growth in McWorld
where governance and democracy in McWorld is declining at an alarming rate
and where more and more citizens do not effectively participate in
decisions that affect their future. Civitas criticizes the "rootless"
growth of McWorld, where world culture is increasingly homogenized and more
and more a reflection of the materialism of the West, especially of the
USA. They do not believe with McWorld that the answer to the disappearance
of over 700 indigenous peoples around the world due to modernization is to
collect their genetic materials and store these in a human gene bank.[11]
Civitas is alarmed with the "futureless" growth of McWorld, the
rampant destruction of nature which increasingly threatens the future of
humanity. Civitas is asking McWorld, for one of many examples, how it will
solve the problem of global warming which is spawning weather destructive
of human property and agriculture around the world.
In place of McWorld's competitive neo-Darwinian economy, Civitas
want to install an economy of solidarity or an economy of association.
Instead of liberal democracy, they want to have true, effective, and direct
democracy as the true means to achieve justice and equality in the planet.
Instead of consumerist materialism, Civitas wants a more spiritual and free
culture which respects the diversities of culture around the world.
Civitas wants to develop a deeper and more sacred respect for the
Earth, and not view it as mere resource that can used and disposed of in an
unsustainable manner like McWorld. Civitas believes that the earth is a
living being and should not be subject to military domination as intended
in the Star Wars project of United States of America, whose elite powers
are the prime animators of McWorld.
The Spiritual Challenge of McWorld's Elite Globalization
From the post-materialist perspective of Civitas, there is an even deeper
challenge coming from the elite globalization of McWorld. The current
debate is not simply about perspectives and beliefs. It is about McWorld's
total rejection of all previous spiritual understandings of the meaning of
human existence, the human condition, and the very essence of nature. It is
about the total transformation of the planet to a materialistic paradise
(or nightmare, from the point of view of Civitas), devoid of any sacred
dimension
McWorld is taunting Civitas and Jihad. "Advance a more spiritual
conception of nature, society, and the human being. If not, I will realize,
before your very eyes, a world of genetically engineered nature, a cyborg
humanity, and a society where human beings are reduced to the status of
satiated and entertained animals."
A cover issue[12] of Newsweek entitled "The Stem Cell Wars" is
symptomatic of the future that McWorld wants to create and which Civitas is
resisting with great effort. It is the battle of McWorld and Civitas over
the embryo, over the future of the human being. It is a battle where,
tactically, Jihad is joining forces with Civitas.
Stem cells are those cells in the developing human embryo that have
the potential to become different kinds of tissues - brain tissues, heart
tissues, muscle tissues and so on. McWorld sees the potential of stem
cells for curing a range of illnesses through the replacement of damaged
tissues with genetically engineered stem cell tissues. But Civitas says
that McWorld medicine is the beginning of a slippery slope where the human
being is becoming a commodity. In the words of Jeremy Rifkin, quoted by
Newsweek: "the child becomes the ultimate shopping experience in the post
modern world."
Civitas perceives itself as opposing a new kind of eugenics. It is
no longer political eugenics like the one that the Nazi's practiced. For
Civitas it is a kind of eugenics of the marketplace. Civitas sees that,
piece by piece, the parents of the near future will be making decisions of
what kind of genes their children will have. McWorld's biological science
believes that phenotypic traits are totally encoded in the genes. So that
genetic transfers can produce its corresponding phenotypic including
behavioral expression.[13]
In this "stem cell wars" we clearly see a battle of worldviews.
McWorld says that the human being is just genetic material, and, therefore
does not see ethical problems with the biotech procedure. "What's the
ethical problem?! The human being is just a biochemical machine. Its parts
get worn out so we are merely replace it with spare parts derived from stem
cells. So what's the big deal?"
Civitas, of course, will say. "No, human beings are not biochemical
machines. They are spiritual beings which cannot be reduced to genetic
sequences.
There is a very interesting footnote in this battle. The apologist
of McWorld, Francis Fukuyama, has written a more recent book. In the book,
The End of History, Fukoyama wrote that humanity has now reached the end of
history. Why? The epochal battle between communism and capitalism is
finished. Capitalism and the liberal form of democracy won. There is no
more history, because all of history was just a struggle between that,
those social forms. This is a bit of a simplification of Fukuyama's view
but this is it in essence.
But in his recent work, Fukuyama re-adjusts his views. He admits
that he has made a mistake. He writes that miscalculated the rapid
evolutionary trajectory of gene technology. Specifically Fukuyama was
concerned about the impacts of germline therapy in medicine. In germline
genetic therapy, the traits achieved through genetic manipulation are
transferred to the next generation.
Fukuyama writes that he has made a mistake because the end of
history will come from another arena of life. In essence he is concerned
that the end of history is coming because, with genetic manipulation of the
human being, it will be the end of human beings as we know them. With this
radical transformation of the human being, then it will be the end of
history as we conventionally know it. [14]
This is a shocking statement from a prophet of the neo-liberal
capitalist McWorld. For him the end of history would not come through
capitalism as we understood it but it's going to become the end through
biotechnological manipulation of the human being. We will no longer have
the human being as we understand what human being to be.
So there is in humanity today a battle not only a battle of stem
cells. What we are seeing is a battle for the very soul and spirit of humanity.
For Civitas this is the essence of their whole challenge to the
elite globalization of McWorld. They see that McWorld suppresses the true
human spirit and individuality. They resist McWorld in the latter's attempt
to banish the human spirit to a biochemical mechanical prison. Combined
with the rights to patent human life[15], for Civitas, McWorld is imposing
a high tech, modern form of slavery.
It is clear that McWorld's elite globalization is issuing a
spiritual challenge to humanity. In this particular case, it is asking the
question: What does it mean to be a human being? If Jihad or Civitas do
not answer this question, at all the different levels in which this
question has been answered by McWorld, then to that extent will we all
slowly lose our humanity, including those who inhabit McWorld, in the
process of elite globalization.
We can apply a similar methodological examination of the other
issues under debate among Jihad, McWorld and Civitas.
What is society? What kind of society do we want? Do we want a
society dominated by economic forces that fuel the commodification of
nature and human beings to be sold for a price? Or do we want an economy
that's embedded in the larger more spiritual values of society? Do we want
to live in a society that has a just and sustainable economy of solidarity?
Or do we want to live in a society that is a pure expression of the
economic logic of neo-liberal capitalism which forces us to live in despair
amidst the other kinds of undesirable growth that inevitably accompany it?
What does it mean to inhabit a planet as humanity? What does it mean
to have planetary consciousness? Do we want, with Civitas, to develop an
experience of the planet that nurtures our latent spiritual and
compassionate potentials? Or do we want, with McWorld, to develop the means
for the totalitarian control and militarization of outer space?
Meanwhile, McWorld, courtesy of the US Department of Defense, is
developing "Star Wars", its version of planetary consciousness. Star Wars
is not about developing a consciousness of our full humanity. It is about
"full spectrum dominance" of outer space and the planet. It is about
control of "rogue states" and networks which are moving away in rebellion
against the interests of McWorld. It is about using dozens of military
technological innovations, including the use of massive laser guns
stationed in outer space capable of destroying a pin-pointed target on the
surface of the earth.[16]
What is the nature of nature? Is there, as Civitas thinks, a sacred
dimension to nature and deep relationship between the spirit in nature and
the spirit in the human being? Or is nature, as McWorld sees it, simply raw
material for its giant machines, material to extracted, pulverized,
transformed, used and thrown away as waste and material to alter, clone and
patent for profits? Is the vast web of nature simply a biochemical machine
that produced its diversity of life forms through the survival of its
fittest in the struggle for existence? Can the worldview of McWorld justify
its attempt to re-engineer the genetic code of the biosphere on the basis
of its fetish for materialistic, one-sided search for efficiency and profits?
What is essential to realize is that, in all such questions, McWorld
is forcing tradition-breaking, unprecedented materialistic answers to a
world often powerless to resist its instruments of power.
We are at the threshold of an utterly new world, one basically alien
to human history and the human spirit. For McWorld is ready to move from
the materialism of cognition to the materialism of the will and its
technological projections. It is ready to speed up the process of
exosomatic evolution where the human gradually externalizes itself into all
kinds of technological artifacts. It is ready to remake human beings,
nature, and society into its image of technological utopia where humanity
is basically chained to a purely material existence devoid of any meaning
and compassion. And this is and will continue to be labeled as "progress".
McWorld's is actually digging the grave of traditional humanity.
Even aspects of McWorld, which are blind to the coming technological utopia
of cyborgs, nanotechnology, and genetically engineered nature, will enter
the grave of civilization together with Jihad.[17] For McWorld cannot solve
the problems created but its own framework and consciousness. Only those
aspects of McWorld totally attuned to becoming part of cyborg humanity,
dominated society, and engineered nature will not mind the mechanization of
their soul and spirit.
Nor can Jihad have the inner strength to put the genie of
"instrumental reason" back into its technological bottle. For Jihad has not
learnt to deal with egotistic individuality and its instrumental reason
that now dominate the world. It will take the Civitas to usher in a
different world and heal the shattering and destructive legacy of McWorld.
Civitas, Cultural Creatives, New Social Movements, and Civil Society
The emergence of Civitas reveals that there is a will to address the
fundamental questions about human existence that McWorld is forcing the
world to answer. So the question arises. Is there world of Civitas
sustainable? Will it have lasting power in the face of the powerful
challenges that McWorld is spewing into the world?
Fortunately, the world of Civitas rides on the crest of a massive
awakening throughout the planet. This spiritual awakening tens of millions
of individuals has profound and creative responses to the urgent and
threatening questions being asked by McWorld.
On a broad level, Inglehart (1990) describes the emergence of
post-materialistic values that indicate the unease of tens of millions of
humanity over the direction that McWorld has taken.[18] However, at the
level where values transform themselves to action, to an actual encounter
of Civitas with McWorld, then the researches of Paul Ray on "cultural
creatives" become crucial.
Paul Ray and Sherry Andersen (2001) recently published their work on
cultural creatives by a ground-breaking book of that title: Cultural
Creatives; How 50 Million People Are Changing the World ". In this book,
Ray and Andersen, on the basis of 15 years of research interviewing over a
hundred thousand people, identified 50 million Americans who are "cultural
creatives". From preliminary data in Europe, Ray says that there may be as
many as 70 million or more cultural creatives in Europe.
And why cultural creatives? Because the values of this group of
individuals have helped shaped the social history of the United States and
Europe. These values were not just privately held. Individuals who held
these post-materialist values mobilized them, in many diverse ways, to
change the world. So these were cultural values that became creative of and
in the larger society.
One central discovery of this book that is germane to this whole
discourse on globalization and post-materialism is this. There is a very
large overlap in the values structure of those cultural creatives involved
in social movements and those active in the consciousness movements.
Cultural creatives tend to become key participants and/or leaders in
so-called new social movements.
Cultural creatives have been and continue to be active in the
various new social movements that have surfaced since the end of the Second
World War. These new social movements include the civil rights movement,
the environmental movement, the student movement, the women's movement, the
anti-war movement, the New Age movement, the human potential movement, the
anti-nuclear energy movement, the alternative health movement, the
sustainable agriculture movement, the alternative development movement, the
solidarity movement, the anti-elite globalization movement, and so on.
There is an important characteristic of these new social movements
(NSMs). They are all based on the reframing of existing dominant or
received realities and new identities are constructed out this reframing of
the world.
In the environmental movement, for example, Rachel Carson, in Silent
Spring, reframed the issue of pesticide pollution as an issue dealing with
the death of nature.[19] Readers of her book who then became
environmentalist reconstructed their identity on the basis of this
framework of viewing nature.
This process is the essence of activist understanding of
post-materialistic consciousness. McWorld frames the world in a specific
way. The activist in Civitas rejects this frame, constructs an alternative
frame, and constitutes his or her identity within the context of that new
frame. Individual activists and other activists interact in a similar way
to construct a collective identity which is basically in opposition to
McWorld. As this process continues to scale up, more and more individuals
construct their identity along the lines of their alternative framework.
Ultimately, the stage is reached wherein the various groups, with
convergent identities, come together to form a new social movement. [20]
Civitas, essentially, is made up of many social movements where
various facets of McWorld have been re-framed and alternative modes of
cognition and behavior, based on new identities, have been constructed.
When this process of coming together is strong enough in a country or
specific issue area, then we see the emergence of what we call, "civil
society" or, in its global expression, "global civil society".
Civil Society as Third Global Power
It is at the level of global civil society that the culture of Civitas
becomes visible as third global power. With the Battle of Seattle and
thereafter, global civil society has joined the state and the market as one
of the three global powers that now shape the world. [21]
Let us recall the Battle of Seattle. At the end of the 20th century,
news of this watershed event flashed around the world. The global media
reported the dramatic details of an unusual confrontation to hundreds of
millions of listeners and readers. Some immediately saw that the event was
a global social earthquake of the highest magnitude. Others understood only
gradually that the foundations of the world's social life had been shaken.
Afterwards, important national and international gatherings would pay
homage to the event, justifying their own visions, programs and activities
in light of it. This event continues to haunt those responsible for the
most powerful version of materialistic modernity that has ever expressed
itself on this planet. This historic event is now known as the "Battle of
Seattle."
Participants of the World Trade Organization (WTO) summit had
arrived in Seattle confident to the point of complacency. Arriving along
with them, however, were 50,000 demonstrators from all over the world and
all walks of life, ready to offer well-organized, articulate resistance. By
the waning moments of the last day of the WTO summit, as economic and
government leaders from 135 countries tried desperately, but in vain to
hammer out a new trade agreement, an unforgettable lesson had been etched
in the psyches of the participants of the battle and the journalists who
covered it.
The lesson was this: the fate of the world would no longer be
determined by a bi-polar power struggle between business or the private
sector (especially large transnational corporations) and the governments of
nation states. The WTO had reflected this bi-polar power structure to its
very core. Now, a third global force had emerged with elemental strength to
contest the monopoly of the two other powers (economics and politics) over
the fate of the earth. The third force is global civil society.
We now live in a tri-polar world where the forces, capacities, and
resources to change the world are clustered in the hands of business,
government, and global civil society. In many countries, cities and towns
are also characterized by this constellation of forces. Three global powers
are now determining the understanding and fate of burning social issues.
Civil society understands that society as a whole has three realms:
the economic, the political, and the cultural. It realizes that it dwells
in the cultural realm just as naturally as business dwells in the economic
realm and government dwells in the political realm. It sees that it can
wield cultural power to achieve its ends just as effectively as governments
wield political power and businesses wield economic power to achieve their
ends.
In Seattle, global civil society used cultural power to counterpoise
principled cultural values against the narrow profit motive and economic
power of many in the private sector and the control motive and political
power of most government agencies. The outcome of the WTO talks was thus
determined by civil society's advocacy for such fundamental values as
freedom, justice, democracy, respect for nature, spirituality, fair trade,
and human rightsespecially the rights of indigenous peoples and minorities.
The Battle of Seattle, during its time, was the latest and most
prominent expression of an ongoing global struggle that has become more and
more visible in the past several years before the event. Previous to
Seattle, global civil society had, through well targeted consumer boycotts,
neutralized the operations of selected transnational corporations. Pepsi,
for example, had to withdraw from Myanmar after students in the United
States called for a global boycott of Pepsi. Similarly, global civil
society had defeated the secret plans of the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD), the club of rich governments of the
world, to have a Multilateral Agreement on Investments (MAI). This MAI was
to have been even more powerful than the WTO Agreement and would have
conferred on transnational corporations tremendous powers over nation states.
The battles, before and after Seattle, are about globalization and
the global powers that are contending to shape it. The outcome of these
struggles will determine how globalization will unfold on the earth in the
coming decades of the 21st century.
Threefolding and the Realization of the Civitas World
McWorld's worldview and values permeate the economic, political, and
cultural realms of the societies that it influences. If Civitas wants to
achieve a similar expression in the world, it must come to grips with the
expression of its worldview and values in the cultural, political, and
economic realm of societies around the planet without collapsing the three
realms of society into one.
In McWorld, the economy strives to subjugate polity and culture to
its own ends. In Jihad, culture strives to achieve external control over
the economy and polity. In Civitas, there is a healthy respect for the
autonomous but interactive and mutually dependent realms of society and,
therefore, Civitas tries to harmonize these three in pursuit of sustainable
and human development.
To achieve this, Civitas has to use a transformative social process,
one that is potent enough to transform elite globalization of McWorld into
its image of comprehensive sustainable development. Civitas has, in fact,
found this potent social transformative approach. It is a process that goes
by the name of social threefolding. And in achieving this, Civitas relies
on its vibrant culture, expressed in global civil society, to start the
process moving.
In social threefolding, individuals, active in the realms of the
three major powers of the worldbusiness, government and civil society, come
together, where appropriate, and mobilize their unique economic, political
and cultural perspectives, talents, and resources to create a vastly
different and more beneficial kind of globalization. However, as seen in
the case of the Battle of Seattle and Genoa, the possibility of this coming
together, unfortunately, often has to be preceded by the confrontation of
the global civil society of Civitas with the governmental and market powers
of McWorld.
To fully appreciate threefolding, we need to understand further why
our world is now tri-polar in a number of ways. Initially we saw, there are
now three contending powers that reside in the worldglobal civil society,
government, and business.
But there is something else that makes our world tri-polar. It is
now tri-polar because global civil society has now enabled culture to
emerge with enough force to actual countervail the power of the economy and
polity. Though its emergence, civil society also simultaneously gives
birth, consciously or not, to cultural life as an autonomous realm within
larger society. Without the autonomy of cultural life, vis a vis the state
and the market, it is not possible to have a socially transformative
expression of the post-materialist world of Civitas.
Therefore it is important to realize that the emergence of global
civil society not only means the emergence of a third global force that has
joined the state and the market in their attempt to shape the world. It
also means that, with global civil society, the free and spiritual cultural
life of humanity, connected with Civitas, has now freed itself from the
domination of McWorld's political and economic dynamics. Therefore we now
need to connect, with more rigor, the three global institutional powers
(government, business, and civil society) with the three realms of society
(polity, economy, and culture) if we want to know how Civitas can actually
successfully contend with both McWorld and Jihad for the future of the world.
From social science, we learn that there are three realms in social
life or three subsystems in societycultural, political, and economic. The
interactions of these three realms determine what kind of social life or
society we have. We live in a healthy society if the three realms mutually
recognize and support each other and develop their initiatives with
awareness of their potential impacts on the other realms. We live in an
unhealthy society if one realm dominates and tries to subjugate the others.
For example, in that destructive form of globalization of McWorld which we
call "elite" or "corporate globalization," one sphere of society, the
economic, dominates over the justified concerns of the political and
cultural realms. In addition, economic and political institutions, in
general, have only a vague understanding and appreciation of culture and
the role it plays in social life.
Businesses as institutions derive their force from their work,
destructive or otherwise, in the economy. Their natural habitat is the
economy. Governments as institutions gain their power, legitimate or not,
from political life. They naturally inhabit the realm of polity. And the
institutions of civil society derive their strength, deserved or not, from
their defense and articulation of the worldviews and values of cultural
life. Their natural habitat is culture. Businesses have economic power.
Governments have political power. And civil society organizations have
cultural power. None has a monopoly of power.
This is the reason why we can now say that civil society,
government, and business are the three key institutions of social life.
Each of these powerful institutions has the potential to "represent," in
its own way, the realm of society from which each is activecivil society
represents culture; government represents polity; and business, the economy.
The three institutions may be "institutional powers of a
tri-polar world," but they are not necessarily aware what social realms
actually constitute this "tri-polar" world. Nor do the institutional powers
necessarily know which social realms they inhabit and have affinity with.
They may only be aware of their opposition to each other and not
necessarily whether they come from the economy, polity, or culture.
For example, if a civil society activist thinks that civil
society belongs to the political realm, then this indicates a usage
reminiscent of being an "institutional power" in a tri-polar world. Civil
society, in this case, is merely aware of its power but not which social
realm it comes from. Or worse, none of the three may think that the
cultural realm is of any importance and all three would therefore prefer to
inhabit either the political or economic realms only.
The term key institutions of social life, on the other hand,
implies that the actors within these institutions have a definite and clear
idea as to what the three social realms are and which one their institution
belongs to. Business, for example, is aware that the three social realms
are economy, polity and culture and that its realm is the economy.
In terms of time sequence, it is normal for civil society and the
other institutions to be aware first that they are an institutional power
in a tri-polar world. Later on, they become aware that they are key
institutions of social life. And, as we shall see, this makes a big
difference in societal transformation and evolution, in general, and in
threefolding, in particular.
We can now understand how the different worlds work. Civitas, Jihad,
and McWorld would like to organize there three realms of society in their
own way. They organize culture, polity, and the economy to fully express
its post-materialist, or traditional, or materialistic modern worldviews
and values. The different worlds of Civitas, Jihad, and McWorld are
different ways of aligning culture, polity, and the economy in a society to
ensure their alignment with the worldviews and values inherent in their own
worlds. When these three worlds clash, their conflict often begins at the
level of culture and then gradually spreads to the other realms of society,
to a struggle over the economic and political direction of the world.
Operational Considerations in Social Threefolding
Generally speaking, threefolding means the autonomous interaction of the
three realms of society, through any of its three institutional powers or
three key institutions, to advocate for or to achieve genuine or
comprehensive sustainable development.
Conventional sustainable development often just means
environmentally sound economic development, which entails the almost
impossible attempt to make McWorld's neo-liberal economic models of
development compatible with the environmental concerns of Civitas. Granted
that this attempt is doable, success is highly unlikely because of
structural defects in neo-liberal economic theory. This synthesis is still
not enough and is too narrow. Often business concerns dominate the
discourse on conventional "sustainable development."
Comprehensive sustainable development of Civitas, on the other hand,
starts with the premise that there are three key institutions that
represent the three realms of society, and thereby potentially the
wholeness of social life. These three realms will bring perspectives
appropriate to the realm to which they belong. Business will bring economic
concerns. Government will bring political concerns. Civil society will
bring cultural, social, ecological, human, and spiritual concerns.
Comprehensive sustainable development therefore considers seven dimensions
of development: economic, political, cultural, social, ecological, human,
and spiritual.
Because of this requirement for a more comprehensive conception of
development, threefolding succeeds more easily when the cultural creatives
in the civil society of Civitas meet the cultural creatives in the business
and government institutions of McWorld.[22] There is inherent understanding
at the level of worldviews and values, thereby facilitating the development
of trust and mutual respect. However, in the battle of ideas, the civil
society of Civitas often faces the governments and businesses of McWorld in
threefolding efforts.
Two Aspects of Threefolding: Process and Substance
Having clarified the general idea of threefolding, we can now focus on an
important related aspect of threefolding: the connection between
threefolding process and threefolding substance.
The autonomous interaction of the three institutions (process) is
just a means to the end of genuine or comprehensive sustainable development
(substance). No abstract program (substance) can be created by any one
institution of society. In threefolding, the concrete program is created in
conflict, dialogue, or partnership, that is, in active processes between
the three institutions of society. Out of these processes will come the
concrete measures needed to achieve genuine or comprehensive sustainable
development.
Threefolding is first and foremost a social process. Out of this
social process, the substance of threefolding emerges. Without a genuine
threefolding process, there can be no authentic threefolding substance.
This is the reason why the term, threefolding, is used in an active sense
denoting a process, a social activity, not a finished social product.
A threefolding process is complete and authentic if there is
meaningful and true participation by all three key institutions of society,
all of which are aware of the social realm from which they come. A
multi-stakeholder process is not necessarily a threefolding process, since
all three key institutions are not always represented in such a process.
There can even be a multi-stakeholder process whose participants belong to
various sectors of the same realmgovernment, for instance, or business. But
this is not a threefolding process, because all three key institutions are
not represented. The very term multi-stakeholder leads to fuzziness and an
unhealthy mixing of the representatives of the different realms of society.
In threefolding, substance is complete if the different dimensions
of development are present. As we have seen, business brings in the
economic dimension. Governments bring in the political dimension of
development. And civil society brings in the cultural, social, ecological,
human, and spiritual dimensions of development. Of course, all the
dimensions of development cannot be achieved in the very beginning. But
they must be consciously taken into account in the process and substance of
threefolding.
Kinds of and Stages in Threefolding
Threefolding cannot manifest in a complete way during its first appearance
in social life. There are different kinds of threefolding and there are
different stages through which authentic threefolding will have to pass.
Threefolding, like a human being, passes through the stages of childhood,
adolescence, and adulthood and therefore the actual concrete manifestations
of threefolding can vary with time and place, depending on the actual
conditions of social life.
According to this analogy, advanced threefolding (adult phase) will
have to first pass through two earlier phases: de facto threefolding
(childhood phase) and conscious threefolding (adolescent phase).
De facto threefolding results when one of the three global institutional
powers asserts its autonomy and defends its realm from perceived or real
invasions from the two other powers and realms of society. In recent
history, de facto threefolding initiatives came almost exclusively from
civil society. In the past decade, the civil society of Civitas has been
defending the cultural realm from the increasingly totalitarian tendencies
of McWorld's various governments and businesses as well as Jihad's cultural
totalitarianism. In any region, country, or global arena where civil
society successfully asserts its autonomy, de facto threefolding emerges.
In de facto threefolding, civil society is in a critical and often
"rejectionist" mode. The Battle of Seattle is one of the best examples of
de facto threefolding.
While de facto threefolding may not be perfect, it is, however, an
important sign that a real possibility for threefolding has emerged and
that there are inherent possibilities in the situation that can be
harnessed for the greater ends of humanity. Furthermore, de facto
threefolding is often a first necessary step for Civitas, especially in
situations where McWorld governments and businesses are often too full of
their political and economic power to genuinely listen and do something
about the concerns of Civitas.
Conscious threefolding results when the three institutional powers
recognize that society has three realms and that they themselves are the
three key institutions of these three social realms. In conscious
threefolding, the three key institutions are aware that they have
consciously entered into a social process that mobilizes the unique
perspectives, strengths, resources and capacities of the cultural,
political, and economic realms of society. The three key institutions know
that, in conscious threefolding, they place their respective talents
towards the pursuit of comprehensive sustainable development, balancing
economic, political, and cultural, social, ecological, human, and spiritual
imperatives of development.
The substance of conscious threefolding will increasingly include
consideration of the seven dimensions of development. Politics and
economics will remain as important considerations. But increasingly
ecological, social, cultural, human and spiritual considerations will enter
into the program details of comprehensive sustainable development efforts.
In conscious threefolding, civil society is in a critical engagement
mode. Philippine Agenda 21 (PA21) is an exemplar of conscious threefolding
at work. PA21 articulates a conscious threefolding image of society and has
an understanding of the three key institutions of society and the realms
from which they are active in. Civitas in the Philippines, through its
civil society, convinced the McWorld government of the Philippines to
officially adopt PA21 as its framework of sustainable development for the
country.
The slow and uneven implementation of PA21, however, is an object
lesson of what can happen when the worldview of Civitas tries to find
expression in the governments and businesses of McWorld. Most of the
agencies of the McWorld government in the Philippines actively or passively
resist PA21even if there are several directives from the Office of the
President to mainstream PA21. The few in McWorld government or business
that see the value of PA21 have conceptual and operational difficulties in
translating PA21 in action.
Increasingly, however, civil society in the Philippines are starting
to undertake pro-active actions to make the Civitas worldview in PA21 into
a reality. Essentially the strategy is to strengthen the presence of
Civitas in culture, polity, and the economy and then create conscious
threefolding partnerships between these Civitas institutions in the three
realms of society. Or, as an alternative, the strategy is to find cultural
creatives with enough decision-making power in the three realms of society
and create threefolding partnerships among them.[23]
Conscious threefolding is more difficult to achieve than de facto
threefolding. "Rejectionists" within Civitas civil society, whose identity
is deeply defined by the protest mode, do not want to have anything to do
with business and government institutions of McWorld.
Similarly even "Critical engagers" within the civil society of
Civitas are hesitant to engage in conscious threefolding because they have
to discern whether the "tri-sector partnerships" proffered by government
and business are opportunities for transforming McWorld or traps by McWorld
to co-opt civil society to its mode of working. The United Nations, the
World Bank and other such McWorld organizations are now launching
initiatives to solve poverty and other social issues using the tri-sector
partnership approach. Civil society of Civitas has to judge these proposals
one by one to determine the authenticity of these efforts in wanting to
achieve a better world.
Advanced threefolding is the adult phase of threefolding viewed from a
developmental or evolutionary perspective. In advanced threefolding, mutual
trust and respect are established and institutionalized, something that
still has to be continuously worked for in conscious threefolding. In
advanced threefolding, the substance of the different realms represented by
the three key institutions is so well understood that creative, albeit
radical new initiatives start to increasingly determine the substance of
the threefolding process.
For example, in conscious threefolding, many aspects of McWorld's
neo-liberal economics will still be active in the debates on threefolding
substance. And the same will be true with many conventional approaches to
governance. In advanced threefolding, only true empirical discoveries of
neo-liberal economics will be retained, and these will be placed within the
context of an economics of solidarity or associative economics and not an
economics of competition that are characteristic of Civitas. Thus the
concept of an open market will be retained, but price and profits as
signals for economic decision-making will be removed from their central
position. Instead, price and profits will be among the considerations for
economic associations as they try to ensure that the human needs of all are
adequately satisfied by the economic system.
In advanced threefolding, process concerns are mostly understood,
implemented, and institutionalized. Thus advanced threefolding is
preoccupied with mobilizing threefolding processes to further elaborate and
implement advanced threefolding substance.
One test for entry into the phase of advanced threefolding is
whether the government of McWorld voluntarily removes its control over
education, which is the responsibility of the cultural realm. Another test
is whether businesses of McWorld stop the commodification of labor and stop
speaking of "labor markets," as if the work capacities of human beings were
just like dead commodities to be bought and sold in the market and subject
to the "law" of supply and demand.
A further test, a tough one indeed, is whether nature, including
land, is no longer commodified in the economic system of McWorld. Instead,
in advanced threefolding, the far-reaching vision of land trusts as
advocated by Civitas is understood and implemented on a wide scale.
In advanced threefolding, civil society is not only critically
engaged. Its role and task is widely recognized and institutionalized by
Civitas, McWorld, and Jihad. Increasingly the worldviews and values of
Civitas begin to provide the framework context for integrating whatever
worldview elements and values of McWorld and Jihad can be harnessed for
comprehensive sustainable development
Because of this, for example, gift money from surplus of the McWorld
economy, goes directly to civil society as a right, not out of the
arbitrary kindness of business institutions. Both business and government
of McWorld and Jihad fully understand and appreciate the role of civil
society in, among others things, the formation of social, human, and
ecological capital that is so essential for the continued vitality of both
business and government.
In the end it may be that it would be impossible for key aspects of
McWorld and Jihad's culture, polity, and economy to integrate with those of
Civitas. However, it is part of the inherent worldview and values of
Civitas to be inclusive and respectful of diversity and, therefore, attempt
to harmonize conflicting situations within a larger unifying context.
Kinds of Threefolding Not Mutually Exclusive
There is no inherent conflict between the three different kinds of
threefolding. De facto threefolding is an essential task of civil society.
Just as, without a child, there would be no adolescent; without de facto
threefolding, conscious threefolding cannot take place. Existing business,
government and cultural powers of McWorld and Jihad often have to be forced
to yield the cultural space that they long to occupy. These political,
economic and cultural powers often need to be awakened by a demonstration
of the cultural power of Civitas in order to appreciate the reality of
civil society and the free cultural realm.
Even when conscious threefolding is being undertaken, de facto
threefolding often still needs to take place and is taking place. Because
institutions are inhabited by people, there are such things as
institutional habits. And problematic institutional habits often die hard
and need to be countered by the activism of civil society.
Similarly, when de facto threefolding has been achieved, it is
important to try to work towards conscious threefolding, where appropriate.
For no amount of de facto threefolding can create a new world that moves
towards the comprehensive sustainable development of Civitas. There has to
be a genuine understanding that there are three realms in society and that
none of the key institutions can dominate the other whether in McWorld,
Jihad, and especially in Civitas. This understanding is fundamental to
conscious threefolding and, in turn, the pursuit of comprehensive
sustainable development. Only conscious threefolding has the power to truly
shape globalization away from elite globalization and towards comprehensive
sustainable development.
Again, the maturing process is similar to that of a child. He or she
must pass on to the adolescent phase and not want to remain in the phase of
childhood. Otherwise, all kinds of psychological pathologies manifest
themselves and the child cannot fully mature as a productive, loving, and
creative adult
Table 1 summarizes the similarities and differences of the kinds of, and
phases in, threefolding.
Table 1. Characteristics of the different types of threefolding
Characteristic
De Facto
Conscious
Advanced
Autonomy of culture established, consciously or unconsciously.
Yes
Yes
Yes
Consciously recognizes the 3 realms of society.
No
Yes
Yes
Consciously recognizes the 3 key institutions in the 3 realms of society.
No
Yes
Yes
Consciously includes the substance of the 3 realms although not completely
harmonized.
No
Yes
Yes
Consciously alters substance of 3 realms towards comprehensive sustainable
dev't. Substance of 3 realms finally harmonized.
No
No
Yes
Threefolding As Permanent Revolution in the Creation of a New World
Threefolding is a permanent revolution because the citizens of
society are mobilized actively in the three realms to restructure the mode
of operations so as to create a better and newer world. Threefolding is a
balanced way to bring about social structural change through healing and
social wholeness instead of an undirected or totalitarian destruction or
control of society.
Threefolding brings in an integral and holistic approach to the
process and substance of development. As a social process, threefolding can
either initially increase conflict but ultimate harmonize the fault lines
between the three global forces that inhabit the tri-polar world. The
quality of the social interaction of the three global forcesnow understood
in threefolding as the three key institutions of social lifewill determine
the directions of globalization and whether or not this interaction will be
able to resolve the burning social issues of our times and those of the
generations to come.
The Future of Planet Earth
As humanity enters into the 21st century, it finds itself engaged in
a battle for three different kinds of future: the world of McWorld, Jihad,
and Civitas.
McWorld's materialistic modernity is rushing towards the creation of
the human cyborg, genetically engineered nature and a world dominated by a
few superpowers with weapons of mass destruction. Jihad fundamentalism,
whether Muslim, Christian, Hindu, or whatever, is appalled by this utter
neglect of the sacred traditions of humanity but spawns of its breed of
violence and intolerance.
In this struggle joins the post-modern spirituality of Civitas.
Jihad views Civitas as inconsequential. The real battle is with McWorld.
For McWorld, the battle is with both Jihad and Civitas. Both stand
in the way of world conquest. McWorld has launched an all out war against
the terrorist aspects of Jihad. In this way, McWorld unsuccessfully tried
to characterize the civil society of Civitas as identical with the
terrorist groups of Jihad. As an alternative, McWorld seeks to co-opt and
incorporate the vital aspects of Civitas and nuance its culture, polity,
and economy with trappings of Civitas.
Civitas is engaged in a struggle with both Jihad and McWorld. As a
first stage, Civitas, through its civil society, resists the aggressions of
McWorld and Jihad and establishes cultural spaces for it to flourish. Once
achieved, it seeks to win over elements of Jihad and McWorld to its new
conception of society and the different possibilities for culture, polity,
and economy within Civitas society. The convening by Civitas of its World
Social Forum as a direct challenge to the World Economic Forum of McWorld
is a signal to both Jihad and McWorld that Civitas is not only about
opposition. It is also about alternatives, a more human and spiritual
approach to globalization and the shaping of societies.[24]
In this process, Civitas will need to draw deeper on its inner
resources, which is the basis of its strength. Civitas understands the
force of its presence is intimately connected with its more advanced
capacity to construct newer and more meaningful identities for humanity.
But Civitas cannot be a preacher in this regard. It must undertake
the painful inner journey necessary to construct new social identities for
a world torn between Jihad's rigid dogmatism of tradition and the exuberant
and destructive materialism of McWorld. Civitas knows that amidst the
thousands of artificial identities that are possible in the global village
of cyberspace, the individual has to encounter its own spirit. If not, then
the identity of that individual will be fused with the artificial
identities of McWorld and the fundamentalist identity of Jihad.
Civitas does not have the institutional control of governments and
businesses that Jihad and McWorld have. However, it is tapped into the
power of the free human spirit and the latter's capabilities to construct a
different world. Civitas knows, in this regard, a deep irony embedded in
the process of elite globalization. It realizes that, at this very point in
the history of humanity when McWorld's elite globalization has
launched the most powerful attack on the human spirit, that just at this
very point, the human spirit can globalize itself and re-shape elite
globalization.
Through civil society, Civitas has the power to mobilize the
spiritual values of tens of millions of individuals around the world,
spiritual values won through inner struggles and pain. Through social
threefolding, Civitas can mobilize its civil society to be a force not only
of for the liberation of the cultural spaces of societies, but also a force
for mobilizing strategic allies in governments and business, and, together,
to create a new world from out of the delegitimized sheaths of McWorld and
Jihad.
No one can predict the outcome of this battle which will be intense.
The outcome will depend to what extent humanity can wake up to its
post-material potentials, incorporate the positive elements of Jihad and
McWorld, and consciously work with vigilance to attain the world of Civitas.
Posted September 26, 2002
[1] This article will appear in Volume 6 of the series on Post-Materialism
edited by Roland Banedikter and published by Passagen Publishing House,
based in Vienna, Austria.
[2] Nicanor Perlas is President of the Center for Alternative Development
Initiatives (CADI) (www.cadi.ph) based in Metro Manila, Philippines. He is
also co-convener of the Global Network on Social Threefolding (GlobeNet3)
which has members and partners in the different continents of the world. He
is author over a 100 articles, monographs, and books including Shaping
Globalization: Civil Society, Cultural Power, and Threefolding which has
been translated into over 7 languages. Nicanor Perlas can be contacted at
cadi at info.com.ph.
[3] See, for example, the series of volumes on post-materialism edited by
Roland Benedikter for Passagen Publishing House based in Vienna, Austria.
[4] http://italy.indymedia.org/
[5] As Welzel, Inglehart and Klingernann (2002) point out, this worldview
differentiation does not necessarily conflict with the civilizational
differentiation of the world. Welzel, C., Inglehart, R. and Klingernann,
H-D. 2002. Human Development as a Theory of Social Change: A Cross-Cultural
Perspective. Obtainable through the Internet.
[6] Barber, Benjamin R.. 1996. Jihad vs. McWorld: How Globalism and
Tribalism Are Reshaping the World. New York: Ballantine Books.
[7] Fukuyama, Francis. 1993. The End of History and The Last Man New York:
Free Press. Friedman, Thomas. 1999. The Lexus and the Olive Tree:
Understanding Globalization. New York Farrar, Straus, and Giroux
[8] See, for example, Habermas, Jurgen. 2001. The Postnational .
Constellation: Political Essays. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press.
[9] The forthcoming description of the different undesirable forms of
growth is taken from the UNDP Human Development Report for 1996 which is a
ground-breaking empirical study of the human, social, and ecological
impacts of neo-liberal capitalism around the world.
[10] See Perlas, N. 2001. Shaping Globalization: Civil Society, Cultural
Power, and Threefolding. 2nd Edition. Metro Manila: Center for Alternative
Development Initiatives and Saratoga Springs, New York: Global Network for
Social Threefolding.. Factual details which follow are found in this book.
[11] See http://www.rafi.org/text/txt_article.asp?newsid=148.
[12] This is the July 9, 2001 issue of Newsweek.
[13] For a quick overview on genes and behavior, see
http://www.stormwind.com/common/genbehav.htoml and related sites.
[14] Fukuyama, Francis. 1999. The Great Disruption: Human Nature and the
Reconstitution of Social Order. New York: The Free Press
[15] The ominous legal beginnings of this journey towards the
commodification of the human being can be found in Article 27 of the TRIPS,
the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement which forms part
of a number of agreements contained in the World Trade Organization.
[16] See the over two dozen articles and newsclips contained in, Protecting
the Heavens from War; Preserving the Sanctity of Space, A Briefing Guide.
Prepared by the Global Security Institute for a Conference on the "Future
of Space: Weaponization or Cooperation", December 1, 2001.
[17] Joy, Bill. 2000. "Why The Future Doesn't Need Us", Wired. 6 August
2000. URL. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html. This article
easily became the most debated article in the history of Wired magazine. It
generated thousands of comments.
[18] Inglehart, Ronald. 1990. Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial
Societies. Princeton University Press. See also Ioannis Kyvelidis 2000.
Measuring Post-materialism in Post-Socialist Societies. European
Integration online Papers (EIoP) Vol. 5 (2001) N° 2;
http://eiop.or.at/eiop/texte/2001-002a.htm:
[19] Carson, Rachel. 1962. Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company
[20] Among dozens of references in this active field of research and
discourse, see New Social Movements: From Ideology to Identity. 1994.
Larana, E., Johnston, H. and Joseph Gusfield (eds.).Philadelphia: Temple
University Press. Melucci, Alberto. 1989. Nomads of the Present: Social
Movements and Individual Needs in Contemporary Society. Philadelphia:
Temple University Press. Snow, David. 1992. "Master Frames and Cycles of
Protest". In Frontiers in Social Movement Theory. Edited by Aldon D. Morris
and Carol McClurg Mueller, pp. 133-155. New Haven: Yale University Press.
[21] See Perlas, N. 2001. Shaping Globalization, op.cit., for detailed
references to the Battle of Seattle, related events, and related analysis.
[22] Most of the cultural creatives are found in civil society. However, an
increasing number of either starting their own businesses or are joining
businesses which they view as having the potential to move towards Civitas.
A smaller number of cultural creatives are also found in the governments of
McWorld. They, together with cultural creatives in conventional McWorld
businesses, are faced with the more difficult task of trying to achieve
change from within.
[23] More details on PA21 can be found in Perlas, N. 2001. Shaping
Globalization: Civil Society, Cultural Power, and Threefolding. Metro
Manila: CADI and GlobeNet3 and Perlas, N et al. 1999. PA21 Handbook. Metro
Manila: CADI.
[24] The World Economic Forum (WEF) meets annually starting the end of
January in Davos, Switzerland. In 2002, the WEF met in New York to ponder
on the global implications of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the
United States. Simultaneously, the Social Economic Forum met in Porto
Alegre, Brazil, to demonstrate that "Another World is Necessary", "Another
World is Possible". For a glimpse of some aspects of the Porto Alegre
perspective, see, International Forum on Globalization. 2002. A Better
World Is Possible! Alternatives to Economic Globalization. Report Summary.
San Francisco: International Forum on Globalization.
GlobeNet3 Global Secretariat
Unit 718 CityLand MegaPlaza
Ortigas, Pasig City, PHILIPPINES
Tel: +63-2-687-7481
Telefax: +63-2-687-7482
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Matthias Reichl
Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
Wolfgangerstr.26
A-4820 Bad Ischl
Tel. +43-6132-24590
e-mail: mareichl at ping.at
http://www.begegnungszentrum.at
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M. Reichl, Begegnungszentrum fuer aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
Center for Encounter and active Non-Violence
Wolfgangerstr.26, A-4820 Bad Ischl, Austria, fon/fax: +43 6132 24590
http://www.begegnungszentrum.at
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