The Basic Challenge: Toward a Viable Global Development

The critical question in this regard is the future of the global system we call the world economy.  Just as that global system effects practically all people on earth, so those people in the end effect the system - by their belief that it does or does not meet their basic needs, by their perception of its legitimacy as a major force in their lives, and through their being more or less motivated by a feeling of involvement and positive vision of the future.

The potential impact of world attitude shifts on the future of the world economy is often overlooked.  For example, the world economy runs on energy; ultimate limits on fossil fuel reserves raise the question of whether these will be augmented and eventually replaced by some form of nuclear power.  World public attitudes will be decisive as to whether primary dependence on nuclear power leads to an acceptable future, or some for m of "soft energy path" must be found instead.

World public opinion will be similarly critical with regard to how drastic measures will be demanded for dealing with increasing problems of hazardous substances, toxic wastes, and agro-chemical runoff.  While pressures of economic competition would seem to dictated rapid deployment of robots and artificial intelligence in industrial production and service industries, the spectre of rising world unemployment may spawn strong opposing reaction.  Spreading public perception that negative long-term consequences of large corporations' actions outweigh benefits has already implied a significant challenge to the legitimacy of present corporate behaviors.

How powerful these changes in world attitude may eventually become is difficult to foretell.  In a series of documents from the International Labor Organization and other United Nations agencies relating to demands for a "New International Economic Order," a set of universally felt human needs has been defined as being in essence:

• Basic human needs ("enough" food, shelter, health care, education, employment, and security of the person)
• A sense of the dignity of being human 
• A sense of becoming (a chance to achieve a better life)
• A sense of justice or equity
• A sense of achievement, related to something worth achieving
• A sense of solidarity - of belonging to a worthy group and of participation in decisions that affect the group's, and one's own, destiny.

National-level programs aimed at implementing a recognized right to satisfaction of these universal needs have been adopted by over 220 countries, in most cases within the past four decades.  In some of the countries, including the United States, the programs were preceded by many years of debate over the appropriateness of acknowledging this presumed right and undertaking social security programs to guarantee it.  Behind the rhetoric of the demands for a new economic order is the proposition that concept of human welfare which has thus far been accepted and applied within a majority of individual nations should now be extended to the entire family of humankind.