'Environmental threats, inequality challenge ethics'

'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)