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Few people advocate war, poverty, pollution or human rights violations. Why do we observe so much of all of these? Is it due to human selfishness,
short-sightedness, inadequate legal systems, or simply ignorance? All of these factors play a role, and several more. It is interesting that they can all be regarded as various forms of breakdown of regulatory
feedback systems.
Every viable system, in nature or society, has numerous automatic feedback mechanisms that constantly compare their current state with a desirable goal
state and set in motion corrective mechanisms if a deviation is detected. An example is the human immune system, which detects and eliminate diseases germs before they can multiply and spread. Another example of
such a feedback control system at the level of a whole society is the legal system. Laws define norms of behaviour, courts determine whether a law has been violated, and the police enforce the laws.
A regulatory feedback system has three main components:
- a desired goal,
- ways to measure deviations from the goal, and
- corrective mechanisms to reduce deviations from the goal.
Such a system can fail in six possible ways:
- there may be no agreement on the goal (a matter of conflict resolution);
- even if the goal is clear, deviations may not be detected (a matter of observation and measurement);
- even if deviations are noticed, those who could correct them may have no incentive to do so, because others are affected (a matter of
externalities, and also ethics, whether we care about each other);
- even if those who cause a problem will ultimately suffer from it, the consequences may not be immediate and they may fail to fore see them (a
matter of planning for the future);
- people may have accurate information on time but fail to correct a problem due to prejudice, hatred, or other sources of irrational behaviour (a
matter of psychology and culture); and
- people may be fully aware of a problem and wish to correct it, but not know how or lack the necessary means (a matter of resources, science,
technology and education). The approach briefly outlined here may be called "adaptation theory" because it emphasises adaptation to changing external conditions for survival.
Here I wish to explore briefly how these six failures contribute to inequality and underdevelopment, and how the United Nations Family of Organisations
may be strengthened to help overcome them.
1. Agreement on Goals
A whole series of organisations foster international agreement on such issues as trade, transportation, communications, labour laws, and the use of
global commons. It has also become urgent to create a UN Space Agency to regulate the growing use of outer space and prevent future wars over space resources. Greater efforts are also required to reduce the enormous
income gap between rich and poor countries. Tinbergen points out that if the developed countries fail to agree to this out of altruism, they should at least do so out of self-interest, to avoid being inundated by
streams of future economic refugees.
2. Detecting Deviations
A variety of statistical offices within the UN system gather information about the state of the world economy, a precondition for informed planning.
Another initiative that can help economic development is a campaign against corruption, one of the main obstacles to development. As long as it is easier to gain wealth by controlling the police or the army than by
producing goods in demand, the most ambitious people will tend to plot military coups or engage in organised crime rather than investing in flourishing enterprises. The UN Human Rights Commission and Amnesty
International have been able to reduce human rights violations by publicly exposing them. A non-governmental organisation, Transparency International with headquarters in Berlin, was founded in 1993 with the goal of
fighting corruption by exposing it and by helping governments implement more effective policies to prevent it.
3. Incentives
To encourage fair competition at the global level, it would be useful to have enforceable global anti-trust laws that limit the accumulation of
monopoly power in the hands of a few transnational corporations.
4. Foresight
Rather than dealing with the debt crisis in hindsight, it would be easier to explore what forces in the world economy are responsible for the tendency
to concentrate wealth, and what forces automatically tend to reduce income differentials. For example, the fact that companies prefer to open new factories in countries with the lowest wages has the tendency of
gradually reducing wage differentials across borders over time. On the other hand, the fact that rich countries can earn profit from foreign investments, whereas poorer countries tend to sink deeper and deeper into
debt, exacerbates income differentials. It should be possible to alleviate future crises by strengthening the mechanisms that promote greater equality and restraining trends that increase global inequality.
5. Overcoming Prejudice
Learning more about other people's lifestyles and customs sometimes allows us to recognise wasteful habits and overcome them. Societies in which women
or ethnic minorities suffer from oppression can learn from the example of societies that have largely overcome discrimination on the basis of sex or race.
6. Knowledge and Resources
Jan Tinbergen noted that some international organisation corresponds to almost every government department at the national level, for example the Food
and Agriculture Organisation to a ministry of agriculture, the International Labour Organisation to a ministry of labour, the World Health Organisation to a ministry of health, etc. Most national economies have
three major financial institutions, a reserve bank, an investment bank and a treasury. The International Monetary Fund corresponds to a reserve bank, although its functions should be extended. The World Bank
corresponds to an investment bank. Corresponding to a treasury, there is nothing comparable at the global level. Yet without a treasury, which collects revenue to finance all its operations, any government would
collapse. Tinbergen therefore proposes the creation of a World Treasury, which could finance the operation of the UN and its affiliated organisations on a secure basis. Agreement on world income taxes is not likely
soon, but an initial source of revenue could be fees for the exploration of mineral resources on the deep seabed outside any country's national jurisdiction. This would also help avoid future wars over those
resources. When oil was first discovered in Texas, some rival oil companies bombarded each other's drilling towers to get at the oil first. Yet they soon realised that they could not make a profit that way. Today
they appreciate that the US government grants exclusive drilling rights to the highest bidder for a tract of land. They pay something, but in return they have the assurance that they can drill in peace, without fear
that someone else would take away the oil they discover. Similar mechanisms at the global level would not only raise substantial revenue, but also provide a valuable service to the companies wishing to exploit those
reserves. Other potential sources of revenue for a World Treasury include a fee for geo-stationary satellites, an auction of the international radio-spectrum and a tax on currency exchanges proposed by Tobin.
Disarmament and economic conversion could also free substantial resources. To mention just one example, UNICEF has estimated that for $1.50 per child, the children in all developing countries could be inoculated
against the most common preventable diseases from which nearly 3 million children under 5 die each year. This would cost about $150 million per year--less than one-tenth the cost of a single Stealth bomber. Perhaps
the most under-utilised resource for development is technical knowledge. Unlike physical or financial resources, which must be given up by someone to be given to someone else, useful knowledge, once discovered, can
be duplicated without limit, at almost no additional costs. Voltaire said that freedom is used up when it is not used. This is also true about human knowledge. If the least polluting and least resource-, energy- and
labour-intensive production methods known anywhere on earth were available everywhere, everyone could be much better off. The weapons research laboratories left over from the Cold War could now join with academic
institutions into a global Network of Applied Technical Universities and Research Establishments (NATURE) to co-operate towards the solution of global problems, instead of planning mutual destruction. They could do
research on non-polluting manufacturing processes, safe and renewable energy sources, disease-resistant and high-yield food crops, new and less expensive cures for diseases, to name only a few, and share their
discoveries world-wide.
Concluding Remarks
The growing global interdependence has given rise to some problems that individual states can no longer solve alone. Only through world-wide
co-operation can we prevent climate shifts, stem the international drug trade, or prevent nuclear terrorism. Simultaneously, improvements in transportation and communication have made global co-operation easier.
Many governments are still reluctant to join a global authority to deal with global problems out of fear that they would lose part of their national sovereignty. But that fear is mistaken. No country today, for
example, has sovereign control over the ozone layer. By joining a global authority that can allocate and enforce emission quotas, we do not give up control over our destiny. On the contrary, we gain added control
that we do not now posses and could never achieve at the national level.
The first advanced civilisations emerged about 6,000 years ago in the Nile, Euphrates and Yellow River valleys when farmers faced problems that they
could not solve alone. To prevent recurrent floods and droughts, it was necessary to build dams to control the flow of those rivers, requiring the organised co-operation of thousands of individuals. This gave rise
to the first states, the development of written language, the codification of laws, and a flourishing of science and the arts. Today we face some problems that not even a superpower can solve by itself. Hopefully,
this will lead to greater world-wide co-operation before it is too late. Modern science and technology have given humanity unprecedented powers. We can use them to make our world more liveable, or to destroy it. The
choice is ours.
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