Globalization, Ethics, and Societal Challenges
Globalization and the Global Village
In the late ’60s, Marshall McLuhan introduced the idea of the global village, understanding human intercommunication as being generated by global electronic media. McLuhan argued that information travels via highways beyond natural borders, making men and women citizens of the world. Media can foster solidarity but can also shape opinions on controversial facts or actions.
Communication media (informing, disseminating ideas, creating opinion, aiding solidarity) combined with new technologies (fast and global) create a world of news for citizens of the world.
Globalization also facilitates global crimes, such as mafia activities, arms trafficking, extortion, and assaults against nature. This highlights the need for a global ethic with universally accepted values like solidarity, respect for life, respect for peace, tolerance, and care for nature. To live in this global village, we need a global ethic, a social consensus about certain values, fundamental rights, and duties. This basic social consensus should be shared and accepted by all individuals and social groups.
Causes of Consumerism
Consumerism is driven by several factors:
- Economic Unit: Money is invested abroad; international loans must be repaid with interest.
- Technological Unit: Technology for exploiting resources is foreign, as are the technicians who use it.
- Strong Country Protectionism: Developed countries protect their products, excluding others from their borders and levying taxes on foreign products.
- Political Corruption: Many poor countries suffer from easily corrupted leaders, which hinders their people’s escape from poverty.
Fair Trade Principles
Fair Trade operates on key principles:
- Producers are organized into cooperatives for greater capacity.
- Refusal of child labor.
- Equality between men and women.
- Respect for labor rights.
- Finding ways to avoid intermediaries.
- Respect for the environment and ecology.
Social Problems
Modern society faces various social challenges:
- Difficulties Accessing Housing: There is limited rental housing, and prices are high.
- Precarious Employment: Abundant unstable, low-quality contracts.
- Feeling of Loneliness: This can lead some to fall into media addiction and other dependencies. Developments in information technology can reinforce isolation.
- Individualism: There is a more marked tendency to fight for one’s own interests without regard for others.
- Violence: Caused by aggressiveness and high levels of stress and anxiety.
- Discrimination: Caused by origin, health status, personal history, or economic situation.
Social Exclusion
Social exclusion affects individuals who are marginalized from society. Causes include:
- Economic: This is the most common cause, related to employment status.
- Educational: Illiteracy, school failure, and early school dropout reduce opportunities for progress.
- Health: Addictions, infectious diseases, mental disorders, disabilities, etc.
- Residential: Living in poor conditions, overcrowding, etc.
- Relational: Deterioration or breakdown of family ties, loneliness, lack of friendships, conflicts in social relations, etc.
Risk Groups
Certain groups are particularly vulnerable to social problems and exclusion:
- Children: Poverty has a doubly fatal consequence. Children must subsist in a present marked by the absence of a stable emotional environment, and this shortage conditions their future.
- Youth: Problems with social insertion and finding housing are increasingly common among young people.
- Elderly: Stopping being productive can cause an identity crisis, and low pensions can be a cause of poverty.
- Women: Most causes are related to the unfavorable labor market and the rise of single-parent households headed by women with young children.
- Immigrants: Often end up accepting precarious jobs.
- Long-term Unemployed: Face significant barriers to re-entering the workforce.