'Environmental threats, inequality challenge ethics'
JAKARTA (JP): The world community is facing the greatest ethical problems because of economic disparity and environmental destruction, a political scientist said Saturday.
Herberth Feith, a specialist on Indonesian politics, told those at the Indonesian Christian Intellectuals Association's 33rd anniversary celebration that rising income inequality and escalating environmental damage were caused by overconsumption which was encouraged by capitalism.
"The world economic system has seen capital owners play their dominant role without paying enough attention to environmental conservation; multinational companies have come to power without challenges by democratic international governing bodies," Feith said.
He said the United States and other nations tended to abide the power of multinational corporations' capital.
Feith cited a new concept on world society by David Korten which divided the world into three socio-ecological classes based on their contributions to ongoing environmental destruction.
The top class comprised 1.1 billion over-consumers, mostly from established and industrial countries. Korten identified this group by their environmentally destructive lifestyles.
Feith said poor families in rich countries and rich people in developing countries were exceptions. Rich people from developing countries earned a quarter of all assets belonging to the world's millionaires in 1994, according to Feith.
The second class comprised two thirds of the world's population with annual incomes between $700 and $7,500. They were called sustainers because their lifestyles were less destructive.
The bottom class comprised a fifth of the world's population. Without money or capital, they were considered no threat to the environment.
Feith suggested overhauling the United Nations to end overconsumption.
"The UN has for a long time been a toothless tiger, but we can rest our hopes on its shoulders provided that it is reformed, restructured and democratized," Feith said.
This message was issued by a Non-Aligned Movement summit here two years ago. But Feith reminded his audience that empowering the UN was once raised by the country's first president Sukarno who pounded the UN General Assembly with his speech, To Build the World Anew, more than 30 years ago.
"Speaking about the empowering of the UN always deals with a battle between old, established and new emerging forces," Feith said.
"Certain countries want the UN to remain weak," he added. He said Boutros Boutros-Ghali's failed bid for re-election proved the UN's vulnerability.
Feith said the UN would only gain strength if it managed to raise enough funds to finance its activities.
He said the UN could increase its regular income from a widely-discussed global taxation scheme.
Feith considered the formula proposed by Nobel economics laureate James Tobin as the most feasible. Tobin said that all cash flowing between countries should be subject to a 0.003 percent tax.
Peter Sumbung, the chairman of the Christian intellectuals association, said democratic societies primarily required law enforcement. All sociopolitical conflicts should be resolved within the framework of rule of law principles, he said.
"Democratization, however, must reflect a continuation of what we gained in the first 30 years of economic development. Democracy does not suggest radical changes, but a step-by-step process," he said. (amd)