FUTURIST ASKS, TIME FOR A GLOBAL WELFARE SYSTEM?

BETHESDA, MD: Terrorism, job shakeouts, pandemics, climate change, and other dislocations are largely the result of tectonic shifts in the global economy. Insecurity is growing in the developed world in spite of efforts to resolve problems stemming from globalization. In the May-June issue of THE FUTURIST magazine, political science professor Anil Hira asks, Is it time for a global welfare system?

"A proposal to create a global institutional system with regulatory and welfare capacity will undoubtedly create huge nationalistic reactions. But the rise of China as the number-two economy in the world illustrates that the world order has shifted, and the architecture set up by the West will no longer be acceptable for the rest of the planet. The question then becomes not whether we need to remake global institutions, but how," he writes in the article.

According to Hira, it is "clearly illogical" for the world community to continue to pay the growing costs of environmental degradation, overpopulation, resource depletion, etc., when a comprehensive institution, outside of the United Nations, would be such a clear benefit to all nations, including the United States.

"Obviously," he says "the system is not working. What is needed is a global system with its own revenue base and independent action, as well as direct accountability to world citizens." In the May-June issue of THE FUTURIST, Hira lays out how such system could emerge.

Pick up the May-June issue of THE FUTURIST for $4.95 at bookstores and newsstands, or write the World Future Society, 7910 Woodmont Ave., Suite 450, Bethesda, MD 20814.

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THE FUTURIST is a bimonthly magazine focused on innovation, creative thinking, and emerging social, economic, environmental, and technological trends.
Among the thinkers and experts who have contributed to THE FUTURIST are Gene Roddenberry, Al Gore, Newt Gingrich, Richard Lamm, Alvin and Heidi Toffler, Buckminster Fuller, Frederik Pohl, Isaac Asimov, Vaclav Havel, Hazel Henderson, Margaret Mead, Robert McNamara, Betty Friedan, Nicholas Negroponte, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Lester R. Brown, Arthur C. Clarke, Douglas Rushkoff, Joel Garreau, and William J. Mitchell.

Editors: To request a review copy of THE FUTURIST magazine or a PDF of Hira's article, contact director of communications Patrick Tucker 301-656-8274 ext. 116, ptucker@wfs.org. More information about the World Future Society can also be obtained from the Society’s Web site, www.wfs.org.