Ensuring that nobody is excluded has become more difficult as people have been affected by rapid economic changes and wars.
Recent decades have seen huge social changes, due to several factors:
· Globalisation– the movement of work to low-cost countries – has accelerated since the second half of the 20thcentury (3.4.2). It has been facilitated by faster communications, faster travel and free trade. It has cut prices and increased prosperity for most people, but it has also displaced jobs in the West (3.5.4). Those who lost their jobs feel left behind, creating resentment against governments (6.3.9), and they often have to move to find employment.
· Technology has transformed many industries (3.2.8). It has also resulted in lower prices, greater overall prosperity, lost jobs, and people moving to find new opportunities.
· Demographics are relevant. Wealthy countries have more jobs available but they have declining populations, whereas poor countries have fewer jobs and more young people (3.4.3).
· Climate change is making some parts of the world uninhabitable, leading to increased migration (3.5.7). It has also resulted in some people losing their jobs as the world transitions to greener technologies.
· Wars have created flows of refugees from scenes of conflict, most notably in the Middle East and Africa. The UN powerlessness in preventing these wars (7.4.4) is a problem that is addressed later in this chapter (9.5).
These economic pressures and migration flows are intimately connected, but they require different types of policy response for ensuring that nobody is excluded – as described in the following sections:
· Policies of economic inclusivity are needed, to help people ‘left behind’ (9.3.1). Political intervention is necessary, including ensuring that the economy is managed for everyone’s benefit.
· Immigration has created some hostility in wealthy societies, aggravating the existing challenges of ethnic diversity, so policies of ethnic inclusivity are needed to avoid friction (9.3.2). Some legal and political measures can be taken, to supplement the moral imperative of socially-acceptable behaviour.
(This is an archive of a page intended to form part of Edition 4 of the Patterns of Power series of books. The latest versions are at book contents).