In 1992, 20% of the people of the world possessed 82.7% of the world's wealth. By
contrast, 1.4% of the world's wealth is possessed by the poorest 20%. Total income of the upper 20% was amount to 60% of that of the lower 20%. This gap is the twice of 1950's(It was 30
times then: UNDP 1992). UNDP made a visual expression
that the world distribution structure has the look of a
Such inequality and division of humanity is caused by the following three things:
As Ludwig von Mises pointed out, the capitalist market structure has inequality in
its essence(Inequality is one of the essences of market). This inequality and division have been controlled by the following three methods by states in modern civilization. The first is that states have mitigated the inequality by way of redistribution like welfare policies. Second, it has effectively restrained the poor from doing armed activities. Third, wealthy countries have gained control over poor countries(non-western countries in the past) by means of violence. For example, pillaging and colonizing non-western countries didn't destroy their civilization(Western civilization). Instead, that has nourished the growth of Western civilization. However, all these became incapable and situations are turning out unfavorable for Western civilization. First of all, states have given up redistribution or welfare policies. The increase in drug abuse and criminals is much more severe in those developed countries. And, situations in poor countries are going beyond the control of violence(military power) by developed countries.
Why do civil wars occur so frequently on the outskirts of the world and why is the
matter of refugees raised to be such a severe problem? Those are unavoidable reactions in the areas where the capitalist market structure cannot guarantee their survive. Modern history was the time that the center led the evolution of history away
from the frontiers or by exploiting them. Any fatal misery in the frontiers couldn't be
an obstacle for the evolution of Western civilization. But, that is changing now. Devastation in the frontiers has become a threat to the center. The history of winners is closed and that of losers' is beginning.
What does such a century-end dilemmas as the dilemma of the world single market and the modern states, that of the information society's and capitalist market structure's, that of materialism and the environmental crisis, and the worldwide division, mean to modern Western civilization? Are they just subsidiary ill effects? Or else, are they fundamental problems that can destroy civilization itself?
First, the rich become able to accumulate wealth throughout the world as a result of
globalization of the economy, and the weakness of states make redistribution
policies(or welfare policies) impossible. The activation of redistribution policy weakens world competitiveness.
Second, the information revolution in capitalist market structures introduces
another inequality to human society. In the past, possession of capital was the unique and essential cause of inequality. In addition to that, another element, the distribution gap between information haves and have-nots, is being caused nowadays.
Third, the inequality has dual structure of international inequality and domestic
inequality in each state, all over the world. It implies the globalization of
inequality.
The dilemmas of today's human civilization(modern civilization of the West) are so fundamental that civilization itself can collapse. That is because basic tools that fueled modern Western civilization --modern states, capitalist market structure-- are being weakened.
It is necessary to look back at history to demonstrate the above issue. The end of Greek civilization is an example that perished by not finding a solution for a dilemma between the globalized market and local states. The end of Roman civilization is an occasion of a civilization that collapsed by not resolving the dilemma of division that traversed an entire civilization in the absence of an enemy.
1) The End of Greek CivilizationArnold Toynbee's keen insight(in his book "Civilization on Trial") comparing the future of modern civilization in the West to the precedent of Greek civilization is still available. His theory says today's modern civilization in the West is in the same dilemma that destroyed ancient Greek civilization.
Greece was composed of several hundreds of city-states. And, an important economic revolution had been made around B.C. 6th century. The economy of Greece was globalized as they built a lot of colonies along the meditrranean Sea. Hence, Greece had abandoned past independent mixed agriculture and converted to a specialized agriculture such as grapes and olives. Hundreds of 'city-state structures' had no validity(or, homeostasis) for the 'globalized economy'. Greece had faced the challenge of the times to unify the whole in every aspect such as setting common trade regulation, bringing out a rational structure of specialization, and security in the sea, beyond city-state structures. The whole of Greece should have been unified into 'a territorial state', but that was impossible. Democracy based on city-states was a value that could never be discarded. And, democracy by territorial states encompassing the whole of Greece was impossible at that time(In the same way democracy including the entire world into a country is impossible).
Greek city-states that had composed the Athen Empire having Athen its leader, based on the Delos Alliance tried to handle the situation(In the same way the US exercises its economic hegemony in the world). But that was what couldn't be pursued. In the end, Sparta having antipathy against that kind of alliance caused a war, and as Athen was defeated in the war, Sparta became a temporary leader. Then, Sparta was conquered by Tebe-Athen allied force, and hegemony by Tebe was apprising the end of Greek civilization. Greece, which couldn't overcome the city-state structure was merged by Alexander of Macedon. The mecca of trade was transferred to Alexandria and the Greek civilization saw its end.
Today, a world government should be established to regulate the unified world market(not to put it into a depression). Nevertheless, as a territorial state in Greece was impossible, the united world nation is a never-never land in our time. Modern nation-states of liberal democracy cannot be applied to the reality of the world like Greek democracy in city-state structures(democracy by the ruling class). Liberal democracy is a reality and a fetter, not an ideal. It is a fantasy that multiple states can control the interests in a peaceful way. It is modern history that even among Europeans two world wars had been provoked by the failures to adjust their interests. Any of Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Arabian, European civilizations have possibilities of being another Sparta opposing an Athen(the US). Anyway, there in no peace in the structure of the united world market and the modern nation. Also, will new wars bring collapse to civilizations?
2) The End of Roman CivilizationWhen Roman civilization had its enemy, it prospered. Enemies unite the internal constituents and restrain afflictions. In the time of Augustus, the conquest policy had ceased. It was because further conquest's cost too much and paid back nothing(This is the same case as the role of violence having been downscaled). The circumstances(barbarians at frontiers) didn't impose a particular threat on Rome(This is similar to the situation that contentious circumstances like the Cold War have been extinct). So the conquest police had finished. But, with the end of the policy, Rome began to decline. The roman ruling class or the rich of the center began to go to the devil in the absence of enemies. The ruling class had lost its goals. Nero had burned up Rome to get a poetic inspiration, and brutal amusements were served at the Colosseum. There were, however, sacrifices of the people from colonies, of the lower classes, and of the barbarians who had migrated under Roman prosperity. Such a great Roman Empire was filled with internal and external proletariats. They didn't have the ability to build a new world, and their struggle to survive worsened the chaos of the then world.
Gradually, the center and ruling class of Rome were not able to secure enough wealth. Conventional tribute and market structure became less efficient in procuring enough wealth for the state, ruling class, and Roman civilians. And a revision was brought up. The price of commodities had been fixed to keep up the standard of living of civilians, tax was increased, farmers were tied to the land by being forbidden from fleeing, and the lower class were prohibited from changing their jobs. Eventually these revisions destroyed the market structure of the Roman empire. Colonies that had lost profitability on account of fixed prices stopped production and transformed to self-supporting local economic structures. Farmers tied to the land came to be villains. Such phenomena as public order collapsed, cities were plundered, the economy became self-supportive, and farmers who had become villains were opening the door to the middle ages. Thus, the Roman economy had come to be blighted and, contemporary, the Roman civilization declined. The crumbling Roman power structure by German mercenaries was just a step of confirmation of the dead body(Rome). Class revolution doesn't destroy civilization. But the inequality(classification) that crosses an entire civilization may break down the civilization throughout the 'conquest by brutality and religion'(Edward Gibbon).
The reality that the rich can safely accumulate wealth all around the world is not that good. The situation that rich and satisfied class doesn't have to consider the poor -- The situation that their wealth has worldwide bases and has no concern with the poor is not that good, either. That makes the poor's struggle to survive pop up in front of history. That is the beginning of the struggles to survive by criminals, plunderers, rioters, and refugees. And, struggles by losers start to destroy the order and the civilization(history by losers comes to life). J. K. Galbraith(in his book "The Culture of Contentment ") foresees that the US ruled by a contented class will face an economic rupture, take military action, and, in turn, experience a riot by the lower classes, and, unfortunately, they 'don't have a future.' This is what Rome experienced, and is the fate of humanity, not only that of the US. When violence by losers destroying the order eventually makes scientific technology meaningless and makes unable to remand SOC, another crisis may begin.
Precedents of Greece and Rome tell us the future of modern Western civilization.
If we understand the core trends in the evolution of our reality, the future of Western civilization is clear. The modern Western civilization has no way but demolition and decline. Modern states become out-of-date as the economy is being globalized. This is quite similar to the city-states of Greece. Likewise, liberal democracy is the same as Greek democracy, and the capitalist market structure praised by the multitude has become old-fashioned. When violence(the police and the military) is not able to control the internal and international division(inequality), and a state cannot regulate markets, the capitalist market structure is merely a source of catastrophe. In addition, the industrial societies are coming to an end as the information revolution evolves, and that is also the end of modern civilization. A lot of countries around the world are still on the way of industrialization, of course. But the current industrialization is different from that of the past. That is an industrialization which should go on under the press of environment and of knowledge informationization. Such a process of industrialization will increase the instability of capitalist market structure regardless of its success or failure.
Liberal democracy, modern nation-states, and capitalist market structure are quite familiar to us. However, the very natural things are going to be worn-out and destroyed. Being old-fashioned of the most natural things -- This is the decline of civilization.
If humanity doesn't resolve those dilemmas of the unified world market and modern state, of the information society, and of capitalist market structure, the worldwide division, human civilization has nothing but decline and demolition. The scenario brought by environmental calamity, depression, riots, civil wars in the frontiers, depravity in the center, and wars can be as radical as in the case of Greek civilization. That is quite correspondent with the scenario of the end of the earth described by Nostradamus and other seers of the future(intuition precedes rational analysis).
Today's human civilization can be slowly blighted by different ways to Rome . Because economic exchanges and markets will still be there, even though everything will have been destroyed. Therefore, capitalist market structure can only be alternated by other forms of structure, but not destroyed. As it cannot be alternative though it causes only catastrophes, that means the blight and decline of the civilization. Nobody will be able to stop the demolition of civilization. It is because the able(the rich, leading state) do not have motivation, and those who have motivation(the poor, frontier states) do not have the ability to stop.
Our conclusion is very luminous. Unless we can overcome the modern state, human civilization will decline. Now, the modern state is losing its past functions and is just a unit of local confrontation. Capitalist market structure is not a fuze for material growth like in the past, but ignites inequality and depression. Liberal democracy is not the engine for setting up freedom and human rights but an engine fettering ultranational solidarity. We may witness a tragedy caused by such structure. People both in developing countries and in developed countries may not feel acutely. The splendid outfit of the center of the world deceives us(In Rome, such outfit had been kept until its end). If you look down on the earth from outer space, the splendid center is no more than a small island on the ocean. Advancement starts from a center but decline starts from the frontiers(So the people in a center usually do not believe in their ruin until they face it). (Hee-Sik Song "History Seen from the Oriental View")
Those benefits from the current structure, while civilization is blighted and declining, still say their optimistic view of the future. Because they are the last people who will die, they see the future to be bright and beautiful, and such a luminous ideology will secure their future by numbing complainers.
Not a small number of Westerners laud a sweet future by the modern state and capitalist market structure. One of them if about 'the end of history'(Fransis Fukuyama). Fukuyama argues that liberal democracy and capitalism are the final terms of advancement of history. He says there is no room for improvement in those post-historical areas, and that history goes on only in areas where liberal democracy and capitalism are under construction. This, however, is an optimistic view that fails to notice the discrepancy between economic structure and political structure. Nation states of liberal democracy and the capitalist world market are engines not for peace and prosperity but for their perishing.
Peter F. Drucker says the third of four countries of today's Third World will already be developed by the year 2,010. But this is just a plain dream. Japan is the only non-Western country that has became a developed country since the opening of the modern age. It requires a hundred years of consistent growth to be a developed country. But all of the countries that have shown their possibilities to become developed ones since 1,960, such as Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and New Zealand, have failed in their efforts. Some scholars also have skeptical views on the future of the Asian Tigers including Korea.(Paul Krugman: "Peddling Prosperity", etc) Capitalism is not the device that brings victory for all. The insistence that a majority of nations will get capitalistic accomplishments and that, by their doing so, Western civilization will still keep its prosperity, is an idle fantasy.
Another optimistic view is the world capitalism and Western civilization led by Asian countries. Countries in north-eastern Asia having Japan-China their center will lead the world, after domination by England-America. This theory is false, too. As long as the modern Western civilization goes on, even those countries in north-eastern Asia do not have any solution for the 'century-end dilemma'. If the north-eastern area goes stronger under the modern structure of the West, a clash between Confucian civilization and Western civilization will break out to take a leading role in the world, as Samuel Huntington foresaw. If the Western civilization would still be kept on, the transfer of hegemony will have to be obtained only by war(A.F.K. Organski: "World Politics"). And, it is sure that the war will be an Amaghedon.
The most worldwide optimism on Western civilization is the, so-called, sweet future by the information society. But, their arguments have subconscious premises of the modern state-capitalist market structure(They do not talk about structures, Hence, they punctuate only the promising possibilities of information technology under an assumption of non-relationship to structures and civilizations). But, we have already talked about a dilemma raised by the information revolution. Having the premise of modern structure, the revolution will destroy the modern Western civilization by prompting employment problems, aggravation of distribution, and casino capitalism, and by making the state and violence incompetent.
Another group of Westerners is hopeful about civil society. They say the state is weakened and civil society gets stronger and that the possibility of a new form of peace by solidarity in civil society surpassing the state. But the state of demolition of civil society starting from those developed countries is our reality. Nowadays is the era organized by worldwide division(inequality), but not the era of civil society led by the middle class. The impact of information revolution dismantles civil society by disintegrating the middle class(The middle class exists only in the industrial society. Clinton had declared he would rebuild civil society 'now falling into pieces', in the State of the Union Message of 95'). Modern morality and civicism are breaking down. Those like Daniel Bell and Zbigniew Brezinski worry about the current situation of the destruction of the American spirit and, consequently, of the loss of appeal to other civilizations( "The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism", "Out of Control - Global Turmoil on the Eve of the 21th Century"). The theory of civil society is merely a rhetoric of Westerners.
Lots of people think as if localization is the way to open a new era. It is easy to be misunderstood as a trend for a new era, in a sense that they(globalization and localization) attack on both sides of the state and change it. But globalization and localization mean , in short, the capital has surpassed the state and authority, and that the whole of humanity and all regions were thrown into the world market -a tumult of competition- without a piece of gear to protect human life. Consequently, only few can win a prize in world competition. Only a few regions(or cities) will prosper to be like islands. And, the islands will be swallowed up by the sea at last. Rome had gone through the same stage. Localization and globalization rely on Western ideology and cannot solve our current problems, and they are not the future.
Therefore, our conclusion is that there is no way of relief for the premise of the modern structure of the West(modern state, capitalist market structure). Transformation of civilization must be oriented toward sublating such a modern structure of the West, finally. By doing so, we can build a new civilization of the 21st century, in a really meanful way. Unless we can do that, there is no future. Thus, our homework is to create a new civilization that is wholly different from the modern Western civilization. That may be colossal but unavoidable.
Can humanity overcome the decline or demolition of civilization and can it bring out a
new civilization in the 21st century? Will a new civilization replacing the declining
modern civilization of the West(civilization before its demolition) be resurrected, and can a huge transformation of civilization take place?
A good number of people say that today is an era of upheaval and that there will be a great transformation of civilization. Anyway, what is the meaning of the transformation of civilization? Europe in the 17th, 18th, and 19th century and today's Westerners are different in an aspect of culture. And today's cultures of America and Europe and those of Asia, Africa, and South America are different. Then, does the formation of hetero-cultures mean transformation? NO! All the regions on the earth since the 17th century till now have had one civilization. The transformation of civilization doesn't mean that today's Western and non-Western areas that have lasted since the 17th century will encounter a wholly different new century(the 21st century) in the sense of quality. Building up information-highways, realizing home-stay working, making relationships throughout cyberspace, and increasing cultural goods do not imply the transformation of civilization. Those are still undergoing the state structure of the modern age's capitalist market structure, material civilization and the modern Western civilization.
The transformation of civilization means that everything is going to change. In the concrete, it implies the change of human spirit and the change of values and the way of living pursued by human. More tangibly, the 'modern state - liberal democracy - capitalist market structure' is going to be reformed, and 'individualism, rationalism, and materialism' will come to change. The transformation of civilization means the formation of a new spirit, new social structure, and a new way of living.
Hence, the homework of humanity is to build up a new civilization(spirit-structure-the way of thinking). That can never be accomplished by a inevitable, spontaneousle, role of history nor accidentally. If it is created, that will be by humans --resurrection and creation of non-Western civilization, exactly. The creation may undergo a process in which a new spirit comes to life, a new social structure takes form, and , in turn, a new way of living becomes pervasive. On the contrary, we will talk about the new social structure first, then we will talk about the new spirit. By that way, we can demonstrate the features of the new civilization much more evitable.
First of all, modern states should be changed. The modern structure had divided the entire human race into states(nation-states). Diverse communities and social sturucture based on Christianity before the modern age have disintegrated due to the market, and united into a unique community(state). Such a modern state should be transformed. States in Europe are forming a union(a community surpassing states) to compete in the globalization of the economy. But there does still exist the concept of a modern state in the background. The completely successful EU will be another US. However, the US itself is an out-of-date structure, and is an under-functioning structure. State union is not the solution.
The solution of the dilemma is a change of state in quality-aspect. The function of the modern community, state, should be specialized. Most of all, the function of the state is inappropriate in controlling the economy. It is not true that the authority controlling the economy is justified by democracy(Democracy is a procedure justifying reign and obedience, not justifying economic distribution). Thus, the central bank of a developed country is free from its government. This means the function of the economy is independent from that of the government. Benelux has one central bank and uses a synchronized currency. So to speak, Benelux is formed of three political communities(states) and one economic community. It is that the economic authority is divided into the economic community and the political community. This is the way to the new civilization.
On the other hand, if there is a section that has become critically important, it is the education-culture sector. This sector also has to form an independent cultural community free from the state(the government) in the sense of function. Today's education-culture sphere has become a no less important part than the economy, and this is also a part that cannot be resolved by democracy, either. A new community different from the modern state should be built up by separating the cultural community from it.
If there is a way to surpass the modern state stated above, it is by dividing the modern state into economic, cultural, and as a remnant, political(new state) communities. Those communities can vary in their sphere. For example, the entire area of north-eastern Asia can be circled as one cultural community based on the Chinese-Character-using civilization(While state communities continues to exist). This is also a way to transform the basic term of the modern Western civilization. We think that liberal democracy is a great ideal. But that is as ideology applicable only in one kind of community, the political community(the state). That can never be a system or an ideology which can surpass the political community, as in the case of Greek civilization
Turing to the modern age, having separated authority into legislative, administrative, and judicial power was a great reform in human history. In the new civilization, separating hegemony(social influence) into political hegemony(power), economic hegemony(power of capital), and cultural hegemony(power of knowledge and rightfulness) and restructuring them into different communities will be the main issue in creating a new civilization. In that structure of new communities', politics, power struggles, infringements of human right, dictatorships, civil wars, and wars will be stories. Let us talk about war, for example. As an economic community and cultural community including a number of countries are set up after the functional division of the state, international struggles(wars) cannot be brought about(It is impossible to think of wars between the members of the EU, or between the state governments of the US). That is the political structure of a new civilization wholly different from the modern Western civilization. Then, humanity may be able to see the opening of an entirely new history. Reality requires such a change now.(see "History seen from the Oriental View")