MAP Insights
By Federico M. Macaranas
(Second of two parts)
Three major threats stall the global economy today. These were the bases of Jeffrey Sachs’ keynote presentation at the Annual CEO Conference of the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) on Sept. 15. These three reflect the convergence of geography, technology and institutions.
In the first part of this column (which came out on Sept. 28, https://www.bworldonline.com/the-new-global-normal/), I used cellphones and coronavirus as the present day icons for political, economic, and social institutions that CEOs need to focus on as they look for thought leadership. For those searching for solutions to complex problems in their own organizations, Sachs presented the big picture as the pandemic challenges keep on morphing and transforming all aspects of human life.
SACHS’ KEY MESSAGES
Sachs set the coronavirus pandemic against previous experiences of mankind. He notes how animal to human transmission of deadly viruses and bacteria were exacerbated by environmental damage. Sedentary farming and urban concentration resulted in technology development that governance institutions could not quite cope with. However, he asserted that the current wildfires, heat waves, hurricanes, habitat destruction, chemical pollution, Philippine deforestation, etc. can be solved with governance informed by science and the common good when ethics is factored in as leaders make decisions.
The geopolitical theme made Sachs’ frank presentation and Q&A session very interesting. He cites his own country’s problematic leadership as the key to the current ASEAN challenge in facing China’s rising status. No, the solution is not in forcing the ASEAN, nor Europe, nor the axes of India, Australia, maritime South East Asia, Japan and Korea to contain China as the US rivals it in creating global public goods (open trade, vaccines for all, education for all).
Yes, the triple foundation for achieving the UN sustainable development goals must rest on leaders’ acceptance of the Golden Rule, preferential option for the poor, and the protection of Creation.
In fact, Sachs noted a call he made to the Vatican a few days before the MAP CEO Conference, following up his action program cited in this book.
(Sachs had earlier worked with major religious leaders, philosophers and ethicists for a common plan to confront deep problems of mankind which no one country can solve. It is so well timed for the 5th anniversary of the 2015 encyclical of Pope Francis “Laudato Si” and the forthcoming 500th year of the circumnavigation of the world which linked Europe and Asia through what was then a relatively Pacific Ocean.)
Yes, leaders need to worry both about what they do internally in their organizations (e.g., applying what neighbors have successfully done during the pandemic in testing, contact tracing, physical distancing, use of masks, calibrated economic opening, etc.) and how they manifest concern for regional cooperation programs (e.g., Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership which includes China rather than the competitor Trans Pacific Partnership which in its current variant still excludes it) — such cooperation will have to include pandemic-related product development, production and distribution.
Why is collaboration the game changer? Let us return to Sachs’ latest book, The Age of Globalization: Geography, Technology and Institutions.
THE OTHER GLOBALIZATION AGES
5. Hegemon vs. Multipolar world: Globalization #5 (1500-1800) Ocean Age voyagers planted the seeds of global capitalism and for the first hegemon Great Britain through its naval prowess. However, the Spanish-Portuguese kings thwarted that in an earlier period by dividing the world with an imaginary line for colonization. The search for Asian spices through an alternative ocean route in a non-flat world led to the “discovery” of the Americas and the circumnavigation of the planet. Adam Smith’s global division of labor emphasized specialization and productivity — the rewards from which we continue to debate today.
Sachs sums up other lessons from this Ocean Age:
“For the first time in history, privately chartered for-profit companies engaged in complex, global-scale production and trading networks. Private businesses, drunk with greed, hired private armies, enslaved millions, bribed their way to privileged political status at home and abroad, and generally acted with impunity. But even beyond the private greed, it was an age of conquest and unchecked competition among Europe’s powers. The world beyond the oceans was up for grabs, and little would hold back the rapaciousness that was unleashed as a result.”
6. Industrial Age and World Wars: Globalization #6 (1800-2000): Rapid advances in technology led to Britain and other adopters’ sharp increases in material living standards. But of course, these occasioned growing social inequity, political instability (in governance systems of global empire constitutions, and capitalism) and eventually in industrial-age threats of nuclear war. After the US inherited the mantle of global economic and political leadership and the capitalist cultural domination, we are faced with a new technology era.
7. God-like Digital Technology? (21st century) Sachs notes “The challenge of globalization from the earliest days of humanity has been the lack of consensus. Our species, exquisitely evolved for cooperation within our clan, is equally primed for conflict with the ‘other.’ In a world that has the ability to ‘end all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life’… can we actively find a consensus for a common plan?”
That end poverty-life quote (John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address) was the precursor of man’s taking the first giant leap for mankind (Neil Armstrong’s historic first step on the moon). It was also the backdrop for the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, the first threat of mankind’s nuclear annihilation. Both were assisted by the computer revolution.
More than e-commerce and digital agritech, edutech, fintech, healthtech, etc., man needs to behave differently today — thinking fast (reactive, knee jerk survival, gut feel) and slow (well-pondered for systems impact) at the same time. It is likely for the latter reason that Sachs in his address called for education as key to the Philippines economic development challenge amid the geopolitical uncertainties around it.
Not merely education for the marriage of the digital, physical, and biological technologies for the 8th Globalization age that will perhaps reshape human behavior positively, but for all to understand how humans and humanoids may ethically reshape our geography, technologies, and institutions for collective survival and prosperity.
This article reflects the personal opinion of the author and does not reflect the official stand of the Management Association of the Philippines or the MAP.
Federico “Poch” M. Macaranas, Ph.D., is a member of the MAP CEO Conference Committee, a retired professor and adjunct faculty at the Asian Institute of Management, and moderated the session of Jeffrey Sachs at the MAP Annual International CEO Conference on Sept. 15, 2020.
