The International Myopia in Social Affairs

Traditional politics were oriented towards national problems, only countries with colonies or imperialistic ambitions had to worry about foreign affairs. A general trend is observed in the developed world towards a lack of representation of politicians. The public opinion does not support what they vote and therefore a gap appears between expectations and facts, letting the door open to innovate in the public domain. Nowadays no one conceives a government without a clear international policy. Within this policy, social affairs are always relegated to a second position and it might be a myopia with a high cost in the future, this essay tries to give some light in the process of setting priorities between economic and social affairs.

A new order

Every few hundred years throughout western history, a sharp transformation has occurred we may think that deeper changes have been registered as a consequence of the development of new technologies but I would affirm that structural changes, in cultural and social terms, in the 20th century will be compared in the future to the most memorable periods of history like the discovery of mechanical printers, the trip of Columbus, the French Revolution, or the Encyclopedia in the age of Enlightenment.

Shall we think that the fall of the Berlin wall and consequently the communism ideal has altered the only chink of social ideas in the developed countries

The years following this step towards capitalism in the communist countries made the whole mankind reconsider the global order and the interaction between the different actors. But it seems that once that financial markets accepted this deep change and Germany seems to be digesting satisfactory the process of integration everybody has forgotten that the basis of the communist countries could improve our lifestyle, that this system did not failed in concept but in implementation and execution.It is truth that with capitalism, we may have arrived to the highest level of efficiency in some fields but we have neglected a whole part of the politics. As shown in the table below, there has been a kind of subrogation of the classical components of the modern State of rights.

This is one of the facts that in my opinion has marked an inflexion point in the 20th century agenda. The result is a society where the "financial snowball falling downhill" has been the name of the game during the 80's and the increase of Media influence the constant during the 90's. The politicians has been the only power that has remained as a golden spectator of the new scenario.This situation could be a consequence of different factors:

National power of decision seems to occupy a second place as a result of the globalization process this concept evokes the power of transnational corporations and the integration of international finance and the diffusion of technological innovations towards a communality.

Increase in the need and accessibility to the information with info highways making possible to read more in one newspaper that an 18th century citizen learned in his whole life. Almost everyone everywhere wants al the things they have heard about, seen, or experienced via the new technologies

Increase of the level of uncertainty in economic terms. The changes caused by supranational organizations (GATT, EU policies, Asean countries' boom) do not have a precedent and therefore make impossible forecasts.

Lack of representation of the political class as a result of the increase in the skepticism of the voters and the corruption cases registered throughout the world.But in my opinion, it is the lack of innovation in government matters the component that has obstructed more the possibility to include some of the benefits of the disappeared social regime in current capitalistic democracies.

Some hypotheses

The lack of innovation in the political domain is a direct consequence of putting the accent in the political structure instead of the civil society

This means that most of the generally accepted as developed political systems are more oriented towards the means that towards the goals.Most of the changes are done in order to facilitate the execution of something that is never done. The re-engineering process in the public domain is a never-ending-story where changes start in the structure but do not affect the civil society. Those changes (downsizing, privatization processes, etc.) may make the government styles converge but my second hypothesis would be:

The more styles converge at the top level, the less that changes are perceived at the lowest levels of the civil society

Therefore as we have some chances of amelioration, we would not be at the highest level of organization possible as Prof. Fukuyama wrote.At least we are not if we consider the lack of integration of the social aspects in most of the political programs. While we see that the economy is converging and transnational networks and public organizations seem to work in the economic field, the social scope is restricted to some isolated actions of non-public national organizations and some international Non Governmental Organizations (NGO's). Social steps given more as a way of "public relations philanthropy" than as an assumed responsibility with the future.

The lack of a paradigm

For any advanced society, social issues must be a legitime aspiration...

• Could we assure a constant growth of the economy for the next 200 years ignoring social, political and economical situation in less developed countries?
• If we did not keep some social ideals what could we expect for then?
• Would it mean that we had to reject the possibility to integrate social aspects in our system?
• Which other paradigm could we take in order to have a point of reference?

I do agree that social capital might be one of the best ways to improve the welfare of the less developed countries but in my opinion this has to be imperatively executed with a top-down approach. The momentum required cannot be achieved without governments help. They may setup a structured framework to start developing programs wherever needed.Sadly this has not been the case so far. The ones who need it do not have neither the force nor the resources to do it. And the ones to have the resources seem to be more interested in national affairs than in social responsibilities. Hirst and Thompson note that international coordination, governance by cooperation between the major trade blocs, and national-level mobilization in favour of such international objectives offer possibilities for creating a newly ordered and prosperous world economy with a whole new set of priorities to work on, like I have tried to do on this paper.We may need to wait a few hundred years more for the next sharp transformation in our democracies.

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