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252 The Origin of Cmlisation

CiWlisation Today

The strange phenomenon of a Forty year spurt which reuolutionises living patterns across the total interacting culture system is corwincingly evident in the forty years sińce the end of the Second World War* Because we are living so close to this era it is rather difficult to wiew it with detached objectivity. Yet again, we are confronted by a massive eruption of monumental cultural changes at every aide. The uision of a world willage has become a faint futurę hope, with the postwar erection of a group of world institutions that, even in this incipient stage, presage the dawn of bet ter International co-operation. The United Nations, the IMF, the World Bank* the Bank for International Settlements, UNESCO and the OECD, are all expressions of this new Internationalism. On a morę parochial piane trading blocs, like the EEC, COMECON, and Opec, reflect a morę co-operative attitude to survival in the thrusting arena of competitiue mass producers and mass consumers. Political power blocs haue also emerged - NATO and the Warsaw Pact being the two most obvious. It is too early to judge the longevity of these new uentures, but they represent a spirit of progress comparable to the euolution of the Polis in the Greek case. For Greece, minutę city-States comprising perhaps no morę than twenty to thirty thousand małe adult citizens could marshall the fuli muster of the free voting population within the agora for a show of hands. Now the reality of modern communication technology makes the global concept of a fuli mass democracy for tens of millibna, by a process of continuous referenda, the plausible equivalent just beyond our present perspectiues, but well within the possible horizons of our expanding democratic ideals.

Rostow deseribes 1951-1972 as the most remarkable two decades of economic growth in modern history,¹*³ and yet, the stark contrasts between the wealth of the First World against the abject powerty of the Third are a reflect ion of the insularity that prewents a wider International approach to world affairs predominating• Such uast ineąualities prouide a measure of how far International ciwilisation still has to traueł and why, as we see it today, we can uisualise it as a newly emergent reality, a delicate bud unfolding. Within the core of these newly fostered attitudes, supporting the altruistic advances, lies the concept of human rights, and the reality of the Welfare State, which values each individual in society- Such ideas were intangible to all earlier communities. Sport and leisure have matured; further expressions of the expanding internationalism, growing in atature as symbols of the indiwidual striving for self improuement.

In the area of prouisioning it is equally elear that we are living through an era of unprecedented dietary innowation. The industrial Processing and packaging of food has reached epidemie proportions; cereals, soft drinks, and the pre-preparation of fully cooked Foods in tins, ęartons, piastic and tin-foil vacuura treated containers, have revolutionised the eating habits of the world* Entirely new Foods have been invented. Reconst ituted and artificial

proteins are still mainly at the drawing board stage, but the ubiquitous beef-burger and the enterprising fiah finger are unigue products of our time, which hawe, quite 1 i terał ly, circumnawigated the globe.

In a wery real sense, the discipline of economics, rather unfairly dubbed 'the dismal science', has come of age in our generation. From lts halting origin in earlier centuries, aa a series of inspired insights, by such theor-etical giants as Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mili, Karl Marx, Alfred Marshall and Lord Keynes, it has reached maturity, moving out of the philosophical realm of abstract formulation to become a pragmatic applied science in the fuli meaning of that deseription. Gouernments of left, right and centre now look to economic theory for direction in the administration of public finances. From tentatiwe origins in late sewenteenth century Britain, budgetary śtatistics and fiscal policy are now a dominant feature in the paraphenalia of the state. They were carried over, almost automatically, from the era of a total war regime to orchestrate a planned reconstruction in peace time, by building on the tangible reality of the Wełfare State and a caring society.

The rise of the paternalistic omnipotent state, so sagely predicted by Talleyrand, must surely rank as one of the supreme innowatiwe breakthroughs of the age. Its inherent dynamism stands in wiwid contrast to the abject impotence displayed by governments of the 1930s. Yet the experiment remains a nerwous nowelty, so ewident from statements by politicians and economists alike, when they berate the chasm that separates the real world of jobs and output from the abstract entanglement of a plethera of conflicting uiews on the monetary front. Here, bitter disagreements ragę over every issue; what actually constitutes money or credit, how should they be measured and controlled? what is the true role played by debt and inflation, floating exchange rates or rising rates of interest for the futurę health of the real economy? Such disputes arise from the uncharted enigmas created by the emergence of an almost fully integrated International financial marketplace -yet another tangible innovation of our time. Although international trade and commerce have, for over five centuries, underpinned the industrial capitalism that lies at the core of the new European ciwilisation, data processing and satellite Communications hawe now created an instant global market that is operat ional twenty-four hours a day. Undoubtedly, the world financial hyper-market exists, even though, at present, the theoretical base to explain how it operates remains obscure. Clearly, if there are uniwersał mechanisms at work within the Total Culture System, these must be relewant and i 1 luminal ing for this current impasse in economic theory. This topie is extensiwely cowered in Global Perspectives.

Innowations continue to emerge on ewery side, and major breakthroughs are ewident which suggest an explosiwe burst of ideas at the wery frmges of known possibilities, entirely in keeping with the concept of a ciwilisation mowing into a new phase of self-sustaining Chain reactions. The adwances in