Is It 1975?

A number of big thinkers are talking about how human dignity should be central to the next administration's foreign policy approach.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of hearing Harvard professor John Ruggie talk about his efforts to get the United Nations to codify corporate responsibility. During his speech to the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, Ruggie mentioned the central importance of human dignity in this age.

Former Carter advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote about the same thing in his recent book Second Chance. David Ignatius puts it like this in his article "A Manifesto for the Next President" in the Washington Post:

Brzezinski argues that the world is undergoing a "global political awakening," which is apparent in radically different forms from Iraq to Indonesia, from Bolivia to Tibet. Though America has focused on its notion of what people want (democracy and the wealth created by free trade and open markets), Brzezinski points in a different direction: It's about dignity.

"The worldwide yearning for human dignity is the central challenge inherent in the phenomenon of global political awakening," he argues. His worry is that America -- enfeebled by "material self-indulgence, persistent social shortcomings, and public ignorance about the world" -- may not get it.

The United States is yearning to restore its moral place in the world. The reason people are so focused on defining a more ethical foreign policy is because that is precisely what is lacking right now.

White House scandals and a failed foreign policy agenda; a tired military; inflation and oil worries; consumer product concerns; environmental worries... the list could go on. It sounds like the 1970s. Let's hope it sounds like 1975 and we are headed for a different, more constructive tone in Washington.

Brzezinski: U.S. Needs Social Responsibility

SAIS Professor and former Carter advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski was on the Daily Show this week plugging his new book "Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower." Read the New York Times somber book review here, which ends with this quote from the book:

"Nothing could be worse for America, and eventually the world than if American policy were universally viewed as arrogantly imperial in a postimperial age, mired in a colonial relapse in a postcolonial time, selfishly indifferent in the face of unprecedented global interdependence, and culturally self-righteous in a religiously diverse world. The crisis of American superpower would then become terminal."

On the Daily Show, Brzezinski said that for the United States to lead, it will have to get over its self-indulgence: "We have to make some sacrifices. We have to make some efforts to adjust to the inequalities that prevail in the world." He recommends a large dose of "humility and social responsibility" for U.S. power--a comment that was met with applause from the audience. He said that it is a dangerous posture to believe that U.S. moral superiority justifies immoral acts.

I wonder if the ultimate interviewer Jon Stewart caught the weight of Brzezinski's follow-up comment: "Operating on the international scene has to be based--to an unprecedented degree--on effective consensus, on drawing others to work with us." Stewart joked about the pettily contributions by other countries to the war in Iraq. But Bzezinski's comment reminded me of the universal need for consensus-building across sectors in this era of globalization. An excellent article in Booz Allen's magazine strategy + business traces this phenomenon. "The Megacommunity Manifesto" states:

"Though globalization is often thought of as waxing and waning through history (with the world sometimes growing more closely linked, and sometimes splintering apart), the current wave of globalization involves a permanent structural change in many of the institutions of the world. Nations and companies alike have undergone an irreversible shift toward what management theorist Charles Hampden-Turner calls “universalism.” They move away from reliance on connections and loyalty (typical of societies with selective law enforcement) and toward such principles as merit and universal law.

This kind of shift makes even formerly closed societies more open to outside influence, and thus more powerful. But it also makes them more vulnerable, particularly to the problem of economic “winners and losers,” in which the benefits of globalization are not evenly spread. The megacommunity concept represents a movement toward sustainable globalization, in which contact with the outside world, instead of draining jobs and making a local system vulnerable, strengthens long-term quality of life, economic vitality, and community health."