Global issues

Associated with constant population growth, especially in the economically developing regions of the world and fueled by gowing mobility and communication, migration, climate change, poverty and inequality are emerging as complex issues that need to be tackled globally. The Generation Global deals with global challenges and develops a global culture of protest, which draws attention to the social and global responsibilies attached to doing business (social business). Public debates are increasingly about the internalization of negative externalities of the persistent capitalist economic model (direct trade, nearshoring, post-growth, glocalization, regionalization).

Consequences

In addition, space is contracting through improved physical micro, meso and macro mobility (reduction in transport costs, expansion of high-speed lines) and is going to shrink even further by virtual (teleworking, video conferences, zoom) and physical means (Hyperloop). Furthermore, the previously widely accepted basic theorem, according to which economic convergence also leads to cultural homogenization across national borders, is increasingly being called into question in view of so called "culture wars". Although a cultural convergence cannot be observed across the board, at the top of the social hierarchy, among digital natives and digital nomads and in some highly networked global cities cultural homogenization of principles of ways of living can be observed. Today social boundaries on functional, territorial and symbolic levels emerge that are crosscutting exisiting national boundaries. This in turn calls into question basic organizational principles of national sovereignty – exclusive control over a given territory. In contrast, sovereignty has been extended through the creation of new institutional forms – for example through the rise of non-elected supranational governmental institutions (central banks, IMF, World Bank, WTO, WHO) and sometimes even unregulated data monopolists and platform companies (social media). Through immensely increasing cross-border transactions many issues are in need of international regulation and adjustment to ensure fair competition (e.g. in the areas of local subsidies, tax regulations, genome research or AI liability laws).

A common tendency of coping with growing economic integration is a regulative raise to the bottom with characterizing features such as restricted redistribution, the deregulation of labor markets (e.g. protection against dismissal, company co-determination). On the other hand non-tariff trade obstacles such as quality regulations are increasingly used as a weapon of coice of national regulators to ensure the viability of their respective national businesses. In addition, Keynesian instruments of demand stimulation fail. With the omnipotence of international financial markets, high capital mobility, and the lack of unilateral national sanction power, states lose their fiscal sovereignty. Thus, the instruments of national stability policy are increasingly subject to the control of financial markets. In view of governments' impotence one can obserce an economic credibility crisis and a latent but growing mistrust of state authority. This is further exacerbated by technological developments (e.g. the rise of digital ledger technolgies such as cryptocurrencies).

Global Trends