The World-Wide Expansion of Commerce and Industry

Today's BusinessWeek Online contains an article titled "The New Multinationals" which focuses on the relatively recent emergence of successful multinational corporations from developing countries, and describes the new approach these companies have to doing business as well as the profound effect they are having on the global marketplace. Here are some interesting excerpts:

These new contenders hail from seemingly unlikely places, developing nations such as Brazil, China, India, Russia, and even Egypt and South Africa. They are shaking up entire industries, from farm equipment and refrigerators to aircraft and telecom services, and changing the rules of global competition.

. . .

What makes these upstarts global contenders? Their key advantages are access to some of the world's most dynamic growth markets and immense pools of low-cost resources, be they production workers, engineers, land, petroleum, or iron ore. But these aspiring giants are about much more than low cost. The best of the pack are proving as innovative and expertly run as any in the business, astutely absorbing global consumer trends and technologies and getting new products to market faster than their rivals.

. . .

Over the next decade, the World Bank projects, developing nations' share of world gross domestic product is expected to grow from one-fifth to one-third. During the next two decades, predicts Goldman, Sachs & Co., China, India, Brazil, and Russia alone will add to their populations some 225 million consumers who earn at least $15,000 a year. That's more than the combined population of Germany and Japan.

The fruits of these developments-- such as increased economic opportunities in developing countries, a more equitable distribution of global resources and greater diversity and representation in the field of international commerce-- seem clear. Yet in the absence of a unifying System of values greater than those provided by materialism, the specter of exploitation, inequality and excess still looms large. In the matchless prose of Shoghi Effendi:

Surely the world, contracted and transformed into a single highly complex organism by the marvellous progress achieved in the realm of physical science, by the world-wide expansion of commerce and industry, and struggling, under the pressure of world economic forces, amidst the pitfalls of a materialistic civilization, stands in dire need of a restatement of the Truth underlying all the Revelations of the past in a language suited to its essential requirements. And what voice other than that of Bahá'u'lláh -- the Mouthpiece of God for this age -- is capable of effecting a transformation of society as radical as that which He has already accomplished in the hearts of those men and women, so diversified and seemingly irreconcilable, who constitute the body of His declared followers throughout the world?

The Global Game

A recent Time Magazine article about the World Cup, written by Michael Elliott and Simon Robinson and entitled The Global Game, addresses the question, "How did a game that was once just a passion of Europe’s industrial working class spread around the world until its most sublime moments became the closest thing to an expression of a true global community there has ever been?"

Among the thought-provoking assertions in the article is the following:

On July 9, around one person in five on the planet—more than 1 billion people—will be watching the same images on TV, as the final of the 2006 football World Cup is played in Berlin. That will mark a new moment in world history. Never before has there been a single event which so united the interest and affection of so many—rich and poor, African and Asian, Islamic and Christian, black and white and every other hue in which humankind comes.

The article also points to the unifying effect that rallying to support the national team has had on traditionally antagonistic factions within countries, and even cites small steps in the advancement of women in Tunisia as one outcome of this process:

Subtly, football is changing Tunisian society—especially because more women now attend games. "Once women are in the match they feel they are like their counterparts anywhere in the world," says Mezouar. "If women are now going to the stadium, this means that society is changing, and that these small steps will eventually lead to more changes."

One of the most interesting facets of the article is the assertion that around one in five people on the planet will watch the World Cup finals on July 9. Assuming this statistic is accurate, it is noteworthy that the vast majority of the 1 billion strong global audience for the World Cup finals will be watching it despite having no national allegiance to either of the teams playing. An intriguing symptom of the integrative process taking place in the world, reminiscent of the following quotation from 'Abdu'l-Bahá:

In this day. . . means of communication have multiplied, and the five continents of the earth have virtually merged into one. And for everyone it is now easy to travel to any land, to associate and exchange views with its peoples, and to become familiar, through publications, with the conditions, the religious beliefs and the thoughts of all men. In like manner all the members of the human family, whether peoples or governments, cities or villages, have become increasingly interdependent. For none is self-sufficiency any longer possible, inasmuch as political ties unite all peoples and nations, and the bonds of trade and industry, of agriculture and education, are being strengthened every day. Hence the unity of all mankind can in this day be achieved.

The Need for Global Collective Security

The Opinion Page of yesterday's Wall Street Journal contained a piece written by Melanie Kirkpatrick entitled "NATO Goes Global." The article describes the current state of NATO -- the alliance of 26 countries from North America and Europe committed to fulfilling the goals of the North Atlantic Treaty, signed on April 4, 1949. By way of background on NATO, Article V of the Treaty states:

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all. Consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

Thus it appears that one of the goals of the formation of NATO was to apply the principle of collective self defense to its European and North American member nations. The first and only time Article V has been invoked was on September 12, 2001.

Returning to Kirkpatrick's Opinion Piece, it details an interesting interview with current NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer in which he is quoted as stating:

"If you look at the threats and challenges coming to NATO, these are of a global nature. Terrorism is of a global nature. Weapons of mass destruction proliferation is a global threat. Failed and failing states are happening on a global scale. . . . NATO needs global partners to face those challenges."

Kirkpatrick goes on to detail NATO's role in Afghanistan--its first mission outside of Europe--and the various challenges NATO faces in securing support from its member nations. The underlying theme seems to be that the increasingly global scope of crises of security requires a global security mechanism, and that NATO is not capable of fulfilling this role on its own.

On a related point, a document submitted by Bani Dugal, Principal Representative of the Bahá'í International Community, to the United Nations in April 2005 in response to a report by the Secretary-General of the UN states:

The Bahá'í International Community welcomes the Report’s more comprehensive vision of collective security, based on the understanding that in our interconnected world, a threat to one State is a threat to all. The Bahá'í Faith envisions a system of collective security within a framework of global federation, in which national borders have been conclusively defined and in whose favor all nations of the world will have willingly ceded claims to make war.

Though we remain at a distance from the establishment of the system of collective security operating within the framework of a global federation envisioned by the Bahá'í International Community, it is interesting to observe the growing recognition of the need for such a mechanism and the perception that the original sphere of collective security conceived when NATO was formed--encompassing a handfull of countries in Europe and North America--is insufficient to address the global challenges of this age.

An Emerging Global Exchange

Today's Wall Street Journal contains a piece written by Bernard Wysocki Jr. and Aaron Lucchetti on the globalization of financial markets. The article focuses on the proposed merger between the New York Stock Exchange and Euronext NV, describing it as "the first trans-Atlantic linkup of stock and derivatives markets."

One concern raised by the authors is the question of who will regulate these increasingly international markets and more specifically, who will be in charge in the event of a market crisis. Among the potential obstacles the authors describe to the effective regulation of an international financial market is a phenomenon identified by Shoghi Effendi as a major obstacle to the global unification of society; namely, nationalism. Wysocki and Lucchetti write:

Right now there's no formal legal framework for regulating exchanges that cross national borders. Regulators around the world are scrambling to establish ties and figure out how to proceed. The process isn't easy: Most regulators aren't only national officials, they tend to be nationalistic, believing their rules are better than those of other countries.

The article points to the model of collaboration between market regulators in the different countries in Europe that make up the Euronext Exchange as a potential solution. Perhaps most strikingly, the authors, in addressing the need for increased cooperation between national market regulators, write that "[o]ne senior regulator in the U.S. compared the cooperation with that seen between different state regulators who have different agendas but often work together under an umbrella group, the North American Securities Administrators Association." This remarkable statement is reminiscent of the following passage from one of Shoghi Effendi's World Order letters:

You can best serve your country, was `Abdu'l-Bahá's rejoinder to a high official in the service of the federal government of the United States of America, who had questioned Him as to the best manner in which he could promote the interests of his government and people, if you strive, in your capacity as a citizen of the world, to assist in the eventual application of the principle of federalism underlying the government of your own country to the relationships now existing between the peoples and nations of the world.