A Provocation

Before the global financial crisis exploded, social change on the planet seemed as vigorous as it was problematic: awesome technological development; the emergence of new vibrant economies such as China, India, and Brazil; marked inequality between countries and within them; persistent poverty in most parts of the world; continued destruction of the environment; deviation of resources toward financial speculation; growth of economic bubbles and occasional blowouts, terrorism and violence, genocide and civil war, epidemics. These were a few of the challenges that faced humanity in the new millennium—conflicts and conundrums stemming from the deep-rooted way in which so many of the countries had been functioning. Then the crisis arrived at the very center of the global system. Panic ensued, and political authorities in most nations hastily adopted emergency measures.

Today different ways out of the global crisis are being tried. Some of the solutions have led me to think that we are rebuilding the pre-crisis world instead of transforming it, while other efforts seem focused on rethinking who we are and what we aspire to become so that we may choose a better global direction. The struggle that marks the beginning of the second decade of the twenty-first century will determine whether a collective course and way of functioning will be adjusted for everyone's good or just for the good of a few.