Everybody, I believe, is in favor of world community; we all like the idea of world community. But I think we're very confused, we've got two different models of what world community is or could be. One model of world community is globalization, by which I mean, here is basically the erasure of national boundaries. So you have one big direct global community. The other vision of global community is internationalization. You still have nation states with boundaries but the relations across those boundaries become more and more important. So you have international trade, protocols, United Nations, so forth, but the fundamental unit remains the nation's state with its boundaries and it controls trade of goods, trade of capital, flow of people. In the other model, the globalization model, boundaries are basically erased, so internationalization, you have a community of communities that builds up to a federation of a global world, global community. In the other vision of globalization you erase national boundaries, you basically destroy or undercut national communities in the interests of building up an immediate total global community. But that total global community has no historical roots, it doesn't really exist and so I think what happens is that you fundamentally destroy the real institutions of community, of mutual caring that exists within national boundaries, in the interests of a rather fictitious and badly thought out idea of a single global. You know, a world without boundaries, a world without borders that makes a very nice song lyric but i's not a very good basis for policy and for taking mutual care of one another in institutions of community.
08.05.2007,
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Herman E. Daly is an ecological economist and professor at the Maryland School of Public Affairs. Prior to his work at the Maryland School of Public Affairs, he worked at the World Bank, where he was Senior Economist in the Environment Department, helping to develop policy guidelines related to sustainable development. While there, he was engaged in environmental operations work in Latin America. He is co-founder and associate editor of the journal, Ecological Economics. His interest in economic development, population, resources, and environment has resulted in over a hundred articles as well as numerous books. His awards include the Grawemeyer Award for ideas for improving World Order, of the Honorary Right Livelihood Award, the Heineken Prize for Environmental Science from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Sophie Prize awarded by Norway.