STWR - Share The World's Resources

A response to Peter Mandelson’s recent pro-globalisation article in the Guardian from Kamran Mofid, founder of Globalisation for the Common Good Initiative.

18th June 08 -  Kamran Mofid ~ STWR

Perhaps EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson lives in another century. Writing in the Guardian on 9th June 2008 he proclaimed that “Globalisation is good ”, as though globalisation were all about trade, production, consumption, labour market flexibility, open markets, and financial integration, with the likes of the WTO and the IMF helping to make globalisation ever more globalised!

I'm not suggesting that nothing positive has come out of globalisation. Where I differ with Peter Mandelson is that trade and financial globalisation also has a very dark side which he seems to ignore by not highlighting them in his piece. The ‘one size fits all’ Anglo-Saxon economic strategy -- obsessed with economic reform, an ever-expanding free-market liberalism, structural adjustment policies, privatisation, and deregulation -- has been a global tragedy. It would be an affront to our humanity and decency to ignore this. It would be great if Peter Mandelson can, in the interest of the common good, bring himself to admit that market fundamentalism has failed as it has broken all the fabric of our society and communities everywhere in the world.   We need a new and different vision of globalisation, a vision that we can all believe in to heal our broken world; a vision with a moral and spiritual compass; a vision with the principles of sharing, cooperation and the common good.

The globalised world economy today, despite many significant achievements in areas such as science, technology, medicine, transport and communication, is facing three intertwined illnesses that are eating at the heart of humanity. They are: an extreme and worsening maldistribution of wealth and income; an overwhelming and worsening threat to the environment; and a collapse of love, compassion, and solidarity in the family, the community, the workplace, and society.

After years of neo-liberalism defined by rampant individualism, materialism and greed, we are now developing a better understanding of what is needed to heal our broken world. All over the globe, people are advocating for new and revitalised leadership in pursuit of a global common good; for leadership that is grounded in global engagement and dialogue; for expanded economic opportunity with justice and equity; and for new institutions and networks to deal with intractable problems. Martin Luther King said it eloquently when he remarked that an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. That is what the global common good is about -- working together for a world of justice and peace, humanity and compassion, and thereby creating the social and economic conditions necessary for all people to lead meaningful and dignified lives.

To provide an alternative to the current dominant model of economic globalisation, we launched “Globalisation for the Common Good”, at an international conference in Oxford in 2002, and have turned this into an annual event at locations across the world. Our mission is to promote an ethical, moral and spiritual vision of globalisation through economics, commerce, trade, international relations and inter-faith/inter-cultural dialogue. We believe that globalisation should be promoting efficiency and equity hand-in-hand, rather than competing against each other. After all, the marketplace is not just an economic sphere, but 'a region of the human spirit’, requiring an understanding of the heart and soul, as well as products and margins and the so-called bottom line.

Given what the world is going through in the 21st century, Mandelson's brand of globalisation is quickly losing credibility: few people believe in it any more. The issue is not more globalisation. The issue now is how to create globalisation for the common good.

Kamran Mofid is the Founder of Globalisation for the Common Good Initiative: An Inter-faith Perspective on Globalisation, and Co-editor of Journal of Globalization for the Common Good.

www.globalisationforthecommongood.info

www.commongoodjournal.com

The response above is mainly based on a recent lecture: Religion in Public Life: Globalisation for the Common Good (Kellogg College, University of Oxford, June 5th 2008).  Link to a transcript of the lecture here

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