February 13, 2002
Mme Chairman, distinguished delegates and colleagues
[Note: These remarks are indicative of the type of discourse that takes place at a gathering and do not necessarily reflect the views of all the members of the Circle.]Thank you for this opportunity to make a statement on behalf of the Triglav Circle. This association was created after the World Summit in Copenhagen by some of the participants in the Seminar on Ethical and Spiritual Dimensions of Social Progress, organized by the United Nations Secretariat and which took place in Bled Slovenia, October 1994.
The purpose of the Circle is to explore the implications of the statement included in the Copenhagen Declaration that “ societies must respond more effectively to the material and spiritual needs of individuals, their families and the communities in which they live.
The Circle is a groupe de reflexion, bringing together individuals from different parts of the world and different walks of life, who share a sense of the urgent need for a wider and deeper consciousness of moral and spiritual values as they apply to the functioning of societies. Our discussions are aimed to enrich the public discourse on economic growth, the environment, and sustainable social progress and in so doing to foster a core message of the Copenhagen Declaration on Social Development. We gather 2 to 3 times a year and disseminate our discussions in printed reports and on our web site, www.triglavcircleonline.org.
In addressing the question of the integration of the economic and social aspects of development I will illustrate the type of discourse we undertake. My remarks in this instance reflect deep concern for the type of model, which is conveyed in the post modern industrial society.
That the liberal foundation of the free market theory is Adam Smith’s famous metaphor of the invisible hand is well known to the educated public. Less readily acknowledged is that Smith intended the invisible hand to be a tool with a service to perform –that is to bring about the common good.
Today in the post-industrial society, the would-be paradigm for the global village, that hand has a logic and a meaning of its own. Divorced from its social project, it has reached out to virtually absorb its purpose, the common good of mankind.
Thus to ask the question should the economic and social sectors be integrated is like asking whether one should reinforce the stable door after the horses have run out and are far gone. This is certainly true in developed societies where there is increasing, unattended poverty.
While the question of integration may be relevant to developing countries seeking the strengthening of their social sectors, for example education and health, one should be forewarned that where multinationals are firm in the saddle, the social is absorbed in the economic.
There are many reasons why a corporate or economic lead approach to progress can create a great deal of malaise in society. Fundamental is the fact that the individual’s non-material resources, such as the capacity to attain meaning, love and wisdom essential to coping well with life’s hardships — including grief, fear and pain — cannot characteristically be nurtured by economic progress predicated on profit seeking, even though the later contributes to a materially comfortable existence.
A careful reading of the Wealth of Nations would certainly give pause to consider whether “the invisible hand” of the market was all that Adam Smith considered necessary for the well being of humanity. Although he railed against an economy under state control and governed according to mercantile beliefs, he suggested there was great cause for governments to protect individuals and societies from the negative effects of modern economic forces.
Smith considered the market place — the dynamics of which were the antithesis of moral sentiments — incapable of overcoming the impoverishment of the human intellect and spirit resulting from uncontrolled technological advance.
For Adam Smith, the most serious implications of the modern market would be the erosion of imagination, courage, and control over one’s environment. Thus, he argued that governments must protect society from the inevitable decline in the art of living and the widespread degeneracy, vacuity, and ignorance to which these advances would otherwise lead.
Today, the dominance of unleashed capitalism in the globalization process poses an even greater threat to the nobler ends of life, –the Good, the beautiful, and the noble–than in Smith’s time. It is the relentless pursuit of economic progress, in an endless spiral of increasing material needs that is spreading to many parts of the world. These cannot meet social needs.
There are growing misgivings about this form of globalization and the quality of life it generates.
Thus, intellectual and other non material factors although not amenable to quantifiable measurement must figure in a comprehensive assessment of society’s progress in its search for higher and more humane living standards.
Even the very well being of democracy and the achievement of political and economic rights depend on maintaining a high level of mental and spiritual life.
So far, however, few governments appear in a position to adopt countervailing policies giving priority to the art of living over economic interests. The revitalization of the intellect and the spirit of humanity rarely if ever appear on their agendas.
The demonstrations now regularly surrounding the meetings of the World Trade Organization, the Bretton Woods institutions, and the Group of Seven, together with evidence of a widespread decline of the civic interest in normal political life are symptomatic of this failing in public policy.
It seems that society has not taken seriously Smith’s message concerning the need for protecting humanity from the mental impoverishment exacerbated by the increasing inroads of economic rationality in all spheres of life and society.
This phenomenon is reflected in losses in the variety and nature of social institutions and communities that traditionally recognized the importance of the human spirit and the rights of individuals to live with security and to die in dignity. In cadence with the spread of global capitalism the naturally authoritarian institutions embracing production, trade, and money have all but taken over the other major social institutions including governments, religious centers, schools, health care organizations, and the military.
If not harnessed, the political imposition or contagiousness of market values, including self-interest and profit, will ultimately render these nurturing and protecting institutions either subservient to the market or obsolete. The paradigm of the some future mono-institutionalized society is the “market society” wherein all human relations are reified in cold, commercial transactions.
To protect or to restore a grander and noble sense of “the human spirit” to modern societies without attempting to push back the clock or to hold back the tides of change is a challenge for individuals and societies in the 21st century. “To do so material progress must be balanced by attention to humanity’s moral and spiritual condition. This equilibrium requires considerable humility.
The challenge is to generate an acceptable and sustainable vision of economic, social and scientific progress, shepherded by beliefs that may defy rational calculation, but able to generate an inexorable advance toward a higher status of knowledge, culture, and moral estate. Some guidance for meeting this challenge can be derived from confronting the economic, political and technological forces that have worked against a holistic vision of progress because of general failure to keep part of social and cultural life insulated from the demands of technology and the exigencies of the market.
Thank you, Madame Chairman