Fernando Alcoforado*
This article aims to present how to organize the world we live in, which is characterized by chaos in the world economy in permanent crisis, by the endless conflicts in international relations and by the continuous environmental degradation of planet Earth. The chaos that characterizes the deteriorating world economy has been dealt with by each country in isolation without any solution, conflicts in international relations are being mediated by the great powers according to their interests without any solution and the continuous environmental degradation of the planet has been dealt with by the UN with no power to demand from countries obedience to its resolutions. In other words, humanity’s biggest problems are not solved because they are not dealt with in a systemic approach and because there are no global organizational structures capable of solving them. The aim of this article is to show that there is no other way to solve the problems resulting from the permanent crisis in the world economy, the endless conflicts in international relations and the planet’s continuous environmental degradation, other than based on systems theory whose foundations are presented in the next paragraphs.
It can be said that the world we live in is made up of three systems: 1) the worldwide economic system; 2) the international system; and 3) the global environmental system (Figure 1).
Figure 1- World-system
The worldwide economic system, the international system, and the global environmental system constitute the world-system in which we live. It should be noted that a system is an ordered set of interconnected and interdependent elements that interact with each other. The worldwide economic system is the way in which the world society is organized in political, economic and social terms in each country to develop the economic activities of production, exchange and consumption of goods and services. The international system is the way through which the governments of the countries of the world relate politically and economically to each other. The global environmental system is the way in which human beings and nature relate to each other. It should be noted that the world economic system, international system and global environmental system are interconnected, interdependent and interact with each other.
The worldwide economic system should aim to achieve economic production to satisfy the social well-being of humanity in each country and globally. The international system should aim to achieve world peace with the peaceful solution of international conflicts, and the global environmental system should aim to preserve nature and/or mitigate the effects of human actions on it. For any system to operate successfully, each of them should have planning, feedback and control mechanisms. To obtain the desired performance standard for each of the systems (worldwide economic, international and global environmental) requires the existence of a global planning and control structure associated with them that allows for the results of their activities to correspond to the performance standard desired by peoples all over the world. Therefore, it is necessary to monitor the performance obtained by each system to identify differences between its implementation and the desired performance standard and, if necessary, decide on the corrections to be made in the work processes of each system. The occurrence of advances and problems in each of the world economic, international and global environmental systems produce reciprocal effects among themselves, generating progress or crises on the world economy, on international relations and on the global environment, whose impacts interfere with each other.
The current chaotic worldwide economic system needs to undergo changes because it is driven by capitalist dynamics, which is a system that operates according to the principle of entropy, presenting the universal tendency to evolve into growing disorder and self-destruction. The current worldwide economic system has produced and is producing economic chaos at the national and global levels that generate endless economic recessions and depressions, has produced and is producing serious damages of a social nature in all countries represented by the excessive concentration of income, by the growing social inequality and due to endemic hunger and poverty, it has produced and continues to produce the environmental degradation of the planet that tends to lead to the depletion of its natural resources, the occurrence of new pandemics such as the new coronavirus and the catastrophic climate change that threatens the existence of humanity and produced and it has also produced serious problems in international relations represented by the two great world wars of the 20th century and by the constant international conflicts all over the planet.
The current chaotic international system also needs to undergo changes because it is incapable of ensuring world peace and mediating the peaceful resolution of international conflicts. The UN that was founded after World War II has been inoperative throughout its history in mediating international conflicts. There are several countries that can become outbreaks of wars in the world, among them Syria, Palestine, Israel, Iran, North Korea, India and Pakistan which can intensify conflicts between the great powers (United States, Russia and China). Localized wars of a regional or global nature negatively impact societies with the killing of people and the destruction of infrastructure and nature causing serious economic, social, environmental and political consequences.
The current chaotic global environmental system also needs to undergo changes because it is incapable of preventing environmental degradation and catastrophic climate change on the planet due to the absence of effective environmental regulation mechanisms with a worldwide scope. The environmental damage produced by the current economic system is manifested in the depletion of natural resources on planet Earth, the emergence of new pandemics and catastrophic global climate change. Wars are also largely responsible for the planet’s environmental deterioration. Among the countless consequences of wars are the bombing of military targets and civilian populations, the intense movement of military vehicles and troops, the large concentration of combat flights, the missiles launched on cities and the destruction of military and industrial structures during all these conflicts that cause the emission of metals and other substances that contaminate the soil, water and air. In addition to environmental contamination from wars, it is also necessary to consider the modification of natural landscapes and the long-term loss of biodiversity, whether due to the presence of land mines or chemical agents dispersed in the environment.
A new world-system will have to emerge to avoid the serious economic, social, environmental and international relations damage described above. The first major justification for a new world-system to replace the old world-system lies in the fact that the current worldwide economic system, which is driven by capitalist dynamics, is evolving towards self-destruction towards its end, which should happen in the mid-21st century when the global profit rate and the growth rate of the World Gross Product will be zero. The world capitalist system will come to an end in the middle of the 21st century because there is a downward trend in the world profit rate from 1869 to 2007, in the profit rate of large US corporations from 1947 to 2007 and in the growth rate of the Gross Product World from 1961 to 2007. To determine when these rates will reach zero in the future, maintaining the downward trend, and performing the calculation using the least squares method of Statistics, it can be concluded that they will occur between 2057 and 2059.
The second major justification for a new world-system to replace the old world-system lies in the fact that the current international system is unable to ensure world peace and mediate international conflicts to avoid the end of humanity with the outbreak of a new world war of devastating consequences. The third major justification for a new world-system to replace the old world-system lies in the fact that the environmental system is unable to prevent environmental degradation and catastrophic global climate change. A new world-system radically different from the current world-system should seek to achieve progress on 3 new bases described below: 1) economic and social progress in each country to achieve the social well-being of humanity; 2) progress in international relations to ensure world peace; and 3) environmental progress in each country and globally based on sustainable development to order the planet’s environment.
To achieve economic and social progress in each country, aiming to achieve social well-being, it is necessary to adopt the model of social democracy existing in Scandinavian countries (Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland) where the most evolved Welfare State in the world was built and, globally, a world government be deployed to promote the stability of the world economy in order to eliminate the current chaos. The defense of Scandinavian social democracy as a model of society to be adopted by all countries in the world with the necessary adaptations is justified because, according to the UN, the Scandinavian countries are the best governed in the world, they are the ones with the greatest economic progress and social among all countries in the world whose people are considered the happiest in the world according to the World Happiness Report 2020. It is an extremely successful model of society that brings together what is positive about capitalism and socialism constituting, therefore, a hybrid system. This means to say that the model of capitalist society existing in the vast majority of countries in the world should be replaced by the model of Scandinavian social democracy.
Progress in international relations to ensure world peace can only be achieved with the constitution of a democratic world government that would be elected by the world parliament to be constituted with the participation of countries from all over the world which are capable of mediating international conflicts because current international organizations such as the UN, IMF, World Bank, World Trade Organization, among others, do not have the power to promote progress in international relations on the planet. To achieve environmental progress in each country and globally, it is necessary the existence of a democratic world government and a world parliament that are capable of building a global consensus to adopt the sustainable development model in all countries to order the planet’s environment.
In the same way that economic and social progress in each country and progress in international relations is urgently needed, environmental progress in each country and globally based on the sustainable development model that must ensure that the needs of current generations occur without compromising is also necessary. the needs of future generations that can only be achieved with the existence of a democratic world government and the celebration of a Planetary Social Contract that would establish the bases of relations between countries in terms of economy, international relations and the environment and the relations between human beings and nature.
The democratic world government to be deployed would represent the most advanced stage of humankind’s political evolution because, throughout history, humanity has evolved from village to form city-states, from city-states to nation-states, from nation-states to constitute economic blocs such as NAFTA and Mercosur or the economic and political union of states such as the European Union. Humanity’s next step would be, therefore, the constitution of a world government to reach its highest stage of development with the promotion of a true economic, political, social and environmental integration at the planetary level based on a planetary social contract approved by all the peoples of the world. Only with a democratic world government would it be possible to reconcile the objectives of each system that is part of the world-system with one another for the benefit of all humanity. The world-system will only benefit humanity if the world economic system achieves stability, the international system achieves world peace and the global environmental system preserves nature. This situation will only be achieved with the existence of a democratic world government.
Success in bringing about political, economic, social and environmental change at the national and global levels depends on the existence of a world government. A democratic world government should not replace the governments of each nation by making them its vassals. National governments would maintain their autonomies by being governed in accordance with the interests of their peoples, while the democratic world government would have the objective of defending the general interests of the planet. What would not be admissible is for any national government to adopt measures that disagree with the decisions taken by the world parliament in opposition to the will of the majority of peoples around the world. The world government would avoid the empire of one country and the anarchy of all countries. The construction of a world government is necessary to face major systemic disasters such as extreme ecological crisis resulting from global warming, large-scale economic crisis such as the one currently registered and tending to worsen in the future, future pandemics such as of the new coronavirus, the globalization of organized crime, the fall of a meteor on planet Earth and the advance of terrorism. The preservation of international peace would be the first mission of every new form of world government.
A fact that all peoples of the world need to consider is that it is not enough to fight to promote political, economic, social and environmental changes in their respective countries without it not being linked to the struggle for political, economic, social and environmental changes at a global level. This is why humanity struggles for centuries against its chronic problems without solving them. Without solving the chaos that characterizes the deteriorating world economy, the endless conflicts in international relations and the planet’s continuous environmental degradation will not solve the political, economic, social and environmental problems of each individual country and vice versa. The struggle for changes in each country must be simultaneous with the struggle for changes in the world sphere. To make the struggle for change in each country occur simultaneously with the struggle for change in the world sphere, it is necessary to establish a World Forum for Peace and the Progress of Humanity by Civil Society organizations from all countries in the world, aiming to coordinate all the fights. This Forum would debate and establish the objectives and strategies of a worldwide mass movement for the realization of political, economic, social and environmental changes in each country and in the world that contribute to the social well-being of humanity, the construction of world peace and preservation of the environment. A new world-system will have to emerge to accomplish the intended goals.
It is important to emphasize that the current world-system urgently needs to be replaced by a new world-system because it is characterized by the most absolute disorder due to the absence of planning and control related to the development of the worldwide economic system, of the international system and of the environmental global system and by the lack of feedback and control mechanisms that allow the correction of the directions of each individual system and of the world-system as a whole. The new world-system to be implemented will only succeed with the existence of a democratic world government to promote the regulation of the world economy, the global environment and the planet’s international relations. To make a new world-system viable, the World Forum for Peace and the Progress of Humanity must be constituted to coordinate the struggles in each country and globally for the constitution of a world government and a world parliament to sensitize the world population and national governments in order to make a world of peace and progress a reality for all humanity. This would be the path that would make it possible to transform the utopia of the integrated world-system and the world government into reality, and from this result the true globalization of human society. This happening would be the victory of civilization over the barbarism that has characterized human history.
* Fernando Alcoforado, 81, awarded the medal of Engineering Merit of the CONFEA / CREA System, member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional Development by the University of Barcelona, university professor and consultant in the areas of strategic planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is author of the books Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova (Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado. Universidade de Barcelona,http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of the Economic and Social Development- The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Müller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe Planetária (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011), Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012), Energia no Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2015), As Grandes Revoluções Científicas, Econômicas e Sociais que Mudaram o Mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2016), A Invenção de um novo Brasil (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2017), Esquerda x Direita e a sua convergência (Associação Baiana de Imprensa, Salvador, 2018, em co-autoria) and Como inventar o futuro para mudar o mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2019).
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