The Field of Global Ethics

1. THE FIELD OF GLOBAL
ETHICS
AS BOTH ETHICS OF GLOBALIZATION AND
ETHICS UNDER GLOBALIZATION

2. WHAT IS
GLOBALIZATION?
Globalization is a process of interaction and integration among the people,
companies, and governments of different nations, a process driven by international
trade and investment and aided by information technology.
This process has effects on the environment, on culture, on political systems, on
economic development and prosperity, and on human physical well-being in societies
around the world

3. HISTORICAL
ORIGINS
Colonial times are often referred by historians as proto-globalization
British East India Company is sometimes regarded as the first
multinational corporation
After World War II, the creation of institutions such as the International Monetary
Fund and the World Bank helped to the development of economic globalization
Technology in our days has driven cultural globalization

4. MAJOR GLOBAL
ISSUES
 a generalized environmental crisis
 the one-sidedness (biased and limited) of ‘economic globalization’
 war
 human rights
 the spreading of migration
 world hunger and poverty
 fair trade
 the growth of media dictated mass consumption coupled with earth-devastating
waste-patterns
 human population

5. MAJOR GLOBAL
ISSUES
 a generalized environmental crisis
 the one-sidedness (biased and limited) of ‘economic globalization’
 war
 human rights
 the spreading of migration
 world hunger and poverty
 fair trade
 the growth of media dictated mass consumption coupled with earth-devastating
waste-patterns
 human population

6. THE ONE-SIDEDNESS OF
‘ECONOMIC GLOBALIZATION’

7. GLOBALIZATION AND ECONOMIC
INJUSTICE
Globalization is a natural consequence of capitalism.
Wealth and income gaps are growing inside
countries and between countries
The richest 20% of the world as a whole enjoyed
a 12% increase in their incomes from 1988 to 1993
while the poorest half saw no growth at all and the poorest
5% suffered a 25% fall.
The main problem rests more with developing countries
resisting market mechanisms and retaining
protectionist policies.
But, it is also true that today’s management of globalization
compounds economic polarities.

8. GLOBALIZATION AND ECONOMIC
INJUSTICE
In practice there is not one market
of international trade, but many.
Some of this markets are liberalized to
become truly global markets.
But there are other markets that tell different stories.
There are markets that haven’t been opened up, and are
often subject to tougher restrictions than before.
Liberalizing some markets while retaining or raising
barriers in other markets drives today’s polarization.
THE PROBLEM ISN’T WITH GLOBALIZATION PER SE,
BUT WITH SELECTIVE GLOBALIZATION.

9. WORLD HUNGER AND
POVERTY

10. SOME FACTS ABOUT
POVERTY
 Almost half the world — over 3 billion people — live on less
than $2.50 a day.
 The GDP of the 41 Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (567
million people) is less than the wealth of the world’s 7 richest
people combined.
 Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on
weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year
2000 and yet it didn’t happen.
 1 billion children live in poverty (1 in 2 children in the world).
640 million live without adequate shelter, 400 million have no
access to safe water, 270 million have no access to health
services. 10.6 million died in 2003 before they reached the age
of 5 (or roughly 29,000 children per day).

11. CAUSES
OF POVERTY
 Structural Adjustment
 This has required poor countries to reduce spending on
things like health, education and development, while debt
repayment and other economic policies have been made the
priority. In effect, the IMF and World Bank have demanded
that poor nations lower the standard of living of their people.
 Corruption
 Leaders from rich countries tell poor countries that aid and
loans will only be given when they show they are stamping
out corruption. But, the rich countries are often active in the
largest forms of corruption in those poor countries, and many
economic policies they prescribe have exacerbated the
problem.
 Food Dumping (Aid)
 Free, subsidized, or cheap food, below market prices
undercuts local farmers, who cannot compete and are driven
out of jobs and into poverty, further slanting the market share
of the larger producers. In the past few decades, more
powerful nations have used this as a foreign policy tool for
dominance rather than for real aid.

12. THE LOCAL
MULTIPLIER
EFFECT
Buying local products at locally owned businesses keeps
money circulating closer to where you spend it.
This creates a ripple effect
as those businesses and
their employees in turn
spend your money locally.
Corporate chains send most For every $1 spent
at a corporate chain…
of your money out of your For every $1 spent
town. at a local business…
Only 15 cents
45 cents are are reinvested
locally
reinvested
locally

13. THE LOCAL
MULTIPLIER
EFFECT
The local effect of
that spending
If everyone in a community spends a greater percentage
locally, the multiplier effect turns that into big bucks for the
local economy. For example, increasing local spending from
50 to 80 percent more than doubles the local effect—from
$200 to $500.
Increasing percentages
of $100 spent locally

14. THE LOCAL
MULTIPLIER
EFFECT
By buying local goods, you maximize your money’s impact and minimize fuel use and
CO2 production. Produce from the supermarket travels up to 92 times farther than
produce grown locally.
A study by the Leopold Center
found that 16 common crops
that grow in Iowa travel an
average of 1,494 miles to
reach chain groceries there.
Bought from local growers,
they travel only 56 miles.

15. HUMAN
POPULATION

16. WAR

17. War is a behavior pattern of organized violent
conflict, typified by extreme aggression,
societal disruption, and high mortality.

18. MAP OF COUNTRIES WITH ONGOING
ARMED CONFLICTS
Major wars, 1000+ deaths per year
Other conflicts

19. when man is seen more as a producer
or consumer of goods than as a
subject who produces and consumes
in order to live, then economic freedom
loses its necessary relationship to the
human person and ends up by
alienating and oppressing him.
John Paul II

20. WILL GLOBALIZATION EVER
TRULY SERVE THE GOOD OF ALL?
WILL IT BE ETHICAL?