Words of Wisdom

Each spring at Honors Convocation, a Mount professor is chosen to address students in the Honors Program. Here we share the latest address.

"A world without borders: The curse of living in interesting times"
April 30, 2006
Distinguished Faculty Address
Martin J. Malone, Sociology

Abstract
Full Address
References
Facts and Figures

Abstract
We live in interesting times.  Since the 1989 collapse of Soviet communism, globalization has ushered in rapid economic, social, political, and cultural changes.  Now instantaneous electronic communication has made that world still smaller.  When the Berlin Wall came down, other borders also began to fall. Today jobs go where the cheapest labor is.  Money moves around the world at the click of a mouse, and people move across national borders to find work regardless of laws or fences.  What will these changes mean for work in the next few decades and how will today’s university graduates adjust to that world?

Full Address
Thank you and welcome – President Powell, Associate Provost Rehm, Father Hilgartner, Dr. Einolf, students, colleagues, parents, and friends. 

I am honored to join the ranks of my colleagues who have delivered these lectures in the past.  And I have promised Dr. Rehm to try to keep my remarks brief.

1.  Introduction
Today I would like to talk about a world without borders, and in so doing, take the opportunity of this talk to go beyond the boundaries of my own academic specialty – sociology, and perhaps poach a bit on the territory of my neighbors in economics and political science.  I hope my colleagues in those fields will excuse my trespassing and also be a bit understanding if I demonstrate my outsiders’ lack of expertise.  While I am an immigrant to these regions, I am not without papers.            

The Mount is a place that prizes interdisciplinary thinking, and I have always valued the opportunity it provides to talk to people outside of my own intellectual territory.  I think we may be a model for the world we need to create in which we can comfortably talk to and understand people who don’t share our own backgrounds or assumptions and beliefs.

2.  A world without borders - money
We are living at a time when the nature of work, family, community, religion, and politics are all being profoundly changed, and no one fully understands what is happening.   Nations are too small to solve the big problems and too big to solve the small ones.  Some have said we may be witnessing “the withering away of nation-states” and this has produced a “new world disorder” (Bauman 57), in which no one is any longer in control. 

The world has become significantly smaller and economies are more tightly intertwined than ever before.  Instantaneous electronic communication means that government regulation of the movement of capital has become almost impossible.  The revival of local and ethnic identities – long suppressed by the Cold War, has reshaped the world in unanticipated ways – from Bosnia to Chechnya to Eretria and Kurdistan (Giddens 31).

These changes are often lumped under the term globalization.  One author describes globalization with the evocative image of “a wondrous new machine that reaps as it destroys…. Huge and mobile, like modern agricultural machinery. It runs over open terrain ignoring familiar boundaries.  “As it goes it throws off enormous mows of wealth and bounty while it leaves behind great furrows of wreckage.”  He says that while there are skillful hands on board, no one is at the wheel.  In fact there is no wheel nor any internal governor to control speed or direction.  It is sustained by its own forward motion, guided by its own appetites, and it is accelerating.  (Greider 1997: 11)

In this context, the NY Times foreign affairs correspondent, Thomas Freidman, has coined the term, “the electronic herd,” to refer to the “anonymous stock, bond and currency traders, and multinational investors” who move trillions of dollars a day around the planet at the click of a mouse (2000, 112).   Currency traders, alone move between $1 and 3 trillion/day (http://www.pro-forex.com/en/markets.php).  In the Asian economic crisis of 1997 and 98, the governments of Thailand, and Indonesia, and later Russia, and Brazil discovered that unhappy investors could pull billions out of their economies in an instant. 

The arguments about the costs and benefits of globalization are complex.  The reports of absolute numbers of people raised out of poverty by globalization are often misleading.  The last 20 years have witnessed economic miracles in China and India, but the same successes have not been repeated in much of the rest of the world.  Because China and India make up more than a third of the world’s 6 and a half billion people, their successes tend to obscure less positive news from other parts of the world.  While extreme poverty (less than $1.00/capita/day) has dropped precipitously in China (from 58% to 15%) and significantly in India (from 52-31%), it has actually gone up Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa (where it is now almost 50%) and remained constant (at about 10%)in Latin America (Sachs 20-25). 

Overall, the world’s wealth is becoming increasingly unevenly distributed.  Thirty years ago, the people of the so-called developed world, who comprise the wealthiest 20% of the population, were 30 times better off than the poorest 20%, today we are 82 times better off.  The wealthiest countries control 86 cents of every dollar of the world’s wealth.  The poorest 20% have about 1 cent.  The combined wealth of the world’s richest four people – Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and the Albrecht brothers (owners of the Aldi department store chain) – is greater than the 48 poorest countries in the world ( www.cooperativeindividualism.org/wealth_distribution1999.html; “World’s Richest People”).  This widening gap is a specter that will haunt our lives and make political stability impossible. 

But this poverty isn’t an inevitable or even an intractable problem.  We also live in a world in which it is realistic to imagine that poverty can be eradicated – and in a relatively short time span.  If the developed countries doubled their financial assistance to poor countries, we could halve poverty and hunger in 9 years – by 2015, and eliminate extreme poverty by 2025, according to the Columbia University economist, Jeffrey Sachs, whose book - The End of Poverty, lays out the necessary, and not especially difficult, steps that can remake the face of the world (347-368).

But he reminds us we still live in a world where more than a billion people live on less than one dollar a day, where 100’s of 1000’s die of starvation, malnutrition, and treatable diseases like malaria, and where 10’s of millions of children die in infancy.  In this context, the US gives about $15 billion a year in foreign aid, about one eighth of one percent of our GDP, and about 1/30^th of the Pentagon budget. 

3. A world without border - People
Globalization isn’t only about the money.  These economic changes have had interesting and unanticipated political effects.  As nation-states lose political power, they are less able to control their own multi-ethnic populations, and we are more and more living in a world that the historian Eric Hobsbawm says is soon likely to consist of the 21^st century equivalents of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and Schwarzburg-Sonderhausen, the tiny principalities that were later incorporated into the German nation (Bauman 64). 

If you think this sounds unlikely, think about how many new countries have been born since 1989 or how likely the many struggling and civil-war torn African republics are to stay united.  And finally, at your most optimistic, think about whether you really believe that Iraq will continue as a single nation-state.

Thirteen years ago, the Harvard political scientist, Samuel Huntington, published his influential essay, “The Clash of Civilizations,” (1993) in which he said that the post Cold War conflicts would be cultural, instead of political.  Given today’s war on Islamist terror, many, especially cultural conservatives, find his analysis prophetic, while many on the left find his sweeping claims inaccurate since they haven’t in fact predicted what has happened.  For example, when the US and NATO intervened in Bosnia, it was on the side of Muslim Bosnians against Serbian Christians, exactly the opposite of what Huntington predicted.  Similarly, secular but Muslim Turkey is more likely to soon become part of the EU, rather than part of the Islamist movement. (Lechner & Boli 2005, 200 ff).  But regardless of whether Huntington got it right, we are now living in a world in which, to everyone’s great surprise, ethnicity and religion are playing a much larger role than they have for the last 500 years.

Not only are international borders disappearing, as in the European Union, where travel is now similar to interstate travel in the US, but even the borders that still exist and are heavily policed, are no longer very secure, as in our own southern border.  And more guards and more fences and more punishment will have no effect on making that border any less porous.  In the last 20 years we have increased the number of Border Patrol officers from 2500 to 12,000 and have increased that agency’s budget from $200 million to $1.6 billion, but the number of undocumented immigrants (adjusted for population growth), has remained relatively constant (Massey 2006).

In 2001, there were more than 160 million people (2.5% of the world population) living and working outside of the country of their birth.  That was up from 120 million in just 1990 (Eitzen 45).  We can pass all the laws we like, but the economic realities of Latin America and the United States mean that people will come because there is work here and not there.  Mexican migrant workers send $20 billion a year home to their families.  That fact alone is more powerful than fences or laws.  The same is true in Western Europe, where African, Middle Eastern and Eastern European immigrants are appearing in record numbers.

4. So how are we to live in this world? 
We used to be able to say that only blue collar manufacturing jobs were disappearing.   You almost certainly know that most of the clothes you are wearing were made in Bangladesh or Honduras or the Philippines or somewhere else in the developing world.  But we thought white collar jobs that involved “knowledge work,” the work done by the highly trained graduates of our colleges and universities, were safe (Reich, 1991).   But much of that work is now being done in India, and Thailand, and South Korea.  Computer engineers working in Bangalore, India, who make $10,000, are inevitably going to replace Silicon Valley engineers, who make $150,000.  In 2003, Indian accountants prepared 25,000 tax returns for Americans.  In 2005, they did 400,000 (Friedman 2005, 13).  Any work that can be routinized and broken down into small parts will be outsourced.

So what are we to do to prepare for a future that is not just close, but here right now?  The simple answer (though it is important to remember simple and easy aren’t the same thing) – is that we all, not just 22 year olds, but those of us in our 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, and older, need to learn to live in a world surrounded by difference, surrounded by new and unfamiliar ways of doing things.  It’s not just about realizing that almost all of you are not finished with your education; that you will almost certainly be back in school in not too many years.  It is also about the realization that we no longer make the rules for the rest of the world.  In our lifetimes, China and India will be immensely more powerful and more important and more central to our lives than they already are.   At today’s growth rates, the size of China’s economy will surpass ours in 2014, just 8 years from now.   And in 2050, India will be the largest country in the world, with 1.6 billion people (CIA World Factbook).

5. Suggestions for work –
We are moving back to an era of large numbers of immigrants – much like the early 20^th century.  This is unavoidable.  We have an aging population and there is demographic pressure from poorer countries.  If we want to preserve a high standard of living, certain things are necessary –

What should I do?

• Languages - 66% of the world’s children are bilingual (Eitzen 47). Learning languages is not a strong point for Americans.  We assume wherever we go people will speak English.  But whenever the people you are dealing with know more than you do, guess who has the advantage.
• Math and science – Globally, advanced knowledge is widespread and low-cost labor is readily available. If our standard of living is going to continue to remain high, math and science are necessary for continued innovation.  (Augustine)
• What kinds of jobs won’t be outsourced?  - Jobs that are not routine – that can’t be automated or broken down into repeatable steps with little variation.  Look for jobs that involve high interaction, people skills, flexibility (Business Week 2004), abstract reasoning, problem solving, and communication (RAND Report 2004).
• Lifelong learning – There is no more life-time employment.  Work for someone who will help you get ready for your next job (Friedman 2005, 284 ff.).

How must the country change?

• Portable benefits - We are in the midst of a set of serious, severe healthcare and pension crises that will need to be solved soon if our economy is to continue to provide good work.  Both sets of benefits must become reliable, affordable, and portable, not tied to employers.  That means the government needs to wake up.  (Friedman 2005, 285 ff).  That means you need to vote.
• Social activism – you can’t be apathetic.  When you buy, you vote.  Think about who your money is going to. Globalization has made the world more transparent.  Find out how a company treats its employees and whether its products are well or shoddily made.  (Friedman 2005, 297ff)  
• Last - Work – a good paycheck is important, but once basic needs are met, money alone won’t make you happier.  Look for jobs with creativity, relationships, fun, challenge, recognition, and a sense of meaning, a sense of purpose larger than yourself (T. Malone 2004)

6.  Finally
I’m proud of how many people we regularly graduate who take our Mission statement seriously when it says – “We seek to graduate men and women who… see and seek to resolve the problems facing humanity, and who commit themselves to live as responsible citizens.”  That is not only done by those of you who go into the Peace Corps and Jesuit Corps and VISTA, but also those of you who go on to graduate and professional schools, and those who go into the military, and those who are going to work. You all have the same opportunity to remake this world, to realize things are changing rapidly and to know that this Mount education has not only given you the skills to do that work, it has also given you the responsibility to do it.

I hope you will never stop being activists.

Remember, as someone smarter than me once said  – if you don’t make the world you live in, you will have to live in a world someone else has made.

References Cited:
Augustine, Norm. 2006. Rising above the gathering storm, 2005. National Academies of Science.  http://nationalacademies.org

Bauman, Zygmunt. 1998.  Globalization: The Human Consequences. NY: Columbia University Press.

Business Week. 2004. “The future of work.”  March 20, 2004.

Central Intelligence Agency. 2005. The World Factbook. 

Eitzen, D. Stanley. 2006. “Dimensions of globalization.” In Eitzen & Zinn. Pp. 45-49.

Eitzen, D. Stanley & Maxine Baca Zinn. 2006.  Globalization: The Transformation of Social Worlds. Belmont, CA: Thomson-Wadsworth.

Friedman, Thomas. 2000.  The Lexus and the Olive Tree. NY: Anchor Books.

Friedman, Thomas. 2005.  The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century. NY: Farrar, Strauss, Giroux.

Giddens, Anthony. 2000.  Runaway World: How Globalization is Reshaping our Lives. NY: Routledge.

Greider, William. 1997.  One World, Ready of Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism. NY: Simon & Schuster.

Huntington, Samuel. 1993. “The Clash of Civilizations.”  Foreign Affairs. 72: 22-49.

Lechner, Frank J. & John Boli. 2005.  World Culture: Origins and Consequences. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.

Malone, Thomas. 2004.  “Competing in the marketplace for values.”  Leader to Leader. #33, Summer 2004

Massey, Douglas. 2006. “The wall that keeps illegal workers in.”  The New York Times. Op-Ed. April 4, 2006. 

RAND Report. 2004. The future at work - Trends and implications. Santa Monica, CA:RAND Corporation. 

Reich, Robert. 1991.  The Work of Nations: Preparing ourselves for Twenty-First Century Capitalism. NY: Vintage.

Sachs, Jeffrey. 2005.  The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for our Time. NY:Penguin.

Wealth Distribution Statistics. 1999.  www.cooperativeindividualism.org/wealth_distribution1999.html.

“The World’s Richest People.” 2003.  Forbes Magazine. February 27, 2003. www.forbes.com/lists/2003.

Some interesting facts and figures

• There are 6.5 billion people in the world.  China’s and India’s populations  - 2.4 billion combined-37% of the world.
• We could halve poverty and hunger in 9 years – by 2015 and eliminate extreme poverty by 2025 (Sachs).
• Since 1981extreme poverty (less than $1.00/capita) has dropped precipitously in China (from 58% to 15%) and significantly in India (from 52-31%).  But it has actually gone up Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa (where it is now almost 50%) and remained constant (at about 10%)in Latin America (Sachs).
• In the last 20 years we have increased the number of Border Patrol officers from 2500 to 12,000 and have increased that agency’s budget from $200 million to $1.6 billion, but the number of undocumented immigrants adjusted for population growth, has remained relatively constant (Massey).
• In 2001, there were more than 160 million people (2.5% of the world population) living and working outside of the country of their birth.  That was up from 120 million in just 1990 (Eitzen).