Communicating Change

Two years ago, my grandson was just returned from a summer course in international politics.  As grandpas do, I asked him about the most significant things he had learned; his response was “that anywhere you look around the world, there’s a problem.”  I congratulated him on getting to the point of foreign policy studies so quickly.  His insight seems particularly appropriate these days, as we follow daily the evolving crises from Europe to Syria to Afghanistan to the arctic to China, to right here in America.  There are, in fact, problems everywhere.  When you look at the whole picture and not just the individual crisis areas, two possibilities emerge; either something is happening of a global nature, or nothing at all.

The “nothing at all” alternative is a recognition like that obtained by my grandson, that there are always problems everywhere and that, perhaps, the real change is that global instant communications makes us aware of them all as never before.  It defines the problem as essentially one of foreign policy information overload.  A solution to that problem is to creep back into your shell and ignore it all.  I wish I could be comfortable with that analysis, but I can’t.  To paraphrase the apocryphal comment by the cowboy at his first sight of the Grand Canyon, something big is happening here.

Changes are occurring at a global level, from the potential fragmentation of the EU to the potential exploitation, for better or worse, of the arctic, to the potential seismic shift in the internal politics of China.  Again, part of the issue is instant global communications, and along with that is the growing global perception of the need to redefine capitalism for a new century.  And they are both the problem and the solution.

Communications are rapid and universal as never before.  I read on the internet of a Chinese dissident’s arrival in the U.S. as his plane is touching down; conversations of world leaders over the European debt crisis are reported as they occur; and the casualty counts in Syria and Afghanistan are daily numbers in the newspapers.  Public media now shape events “in real time.”  They are both a distraction to leaders seeking to look past instant politics to short and long term solutions to real problems, and increasingly, a tool for their resolution.

I read today, in the Washington Post, two opinion columns by writers at the opposite ends of the political spectrum who, looking past the polemical language common to all opinion writers, are agreeing on both the fundamentals of the issue regarding the redefinition of capitalism, and on the alternative choices to be made.  Even six months ago, they could not have spoken such common language.  Other articles reflect similar changes in perceptions of issues ranging from relations with China to campaign finance.  The accumulation of EU debt crisis bulletins, U.S. political news, Arab springs, occupy everywhere reports, etc., available daily, has created a growing trend toward consensus in American political thought about the valid definition of issues.  That’s a long way from resolutions, but a good step forward.

The capitalism alternatives being talked about now at either end of the spectrum may be tagged “creative destruction” versus “social market.”  It is noteworthy that “creative destruction” is an American term preferred by conservatives, while “social market” is a German term preferred by liberals.  Both terms imply that capitalism, international and domestic, in its traditional form, is flawed and needs some kind of reform.  Both recognize that human suffering occurs as a side effect of free market operations.  There’s agreement also on facts like the declining share of income for labor versus capital. That’s not agreement enough by itself to resolve the issues between sharply conflicting points of view, but it’s a start.  And both recognize that changes will occur as a result of political choices being argued and fought out around the world, and will come from the individual choices of real people.  The devil will be in the details of any changes that come about, and there's real risk that superficial solutions will be reached that don't address the fundamental issues of how to change the rules of markets behavior to alleviate the disparities and suffering they produce.  But it 's just possible that “We, the people” is becoming not only a neglected American phrase.  My hope is that in the 21^st century it will echo around the world.