Is the World Really Becoming a Better Place?

What is Progress?

"Progress" is probably the most talk about and used-and-abused word through out the world. Languages may be different but no corner of the globe is without what is called "progress". Look back hundred or two hundred years and compare the world today. Yes, there is progress that is largely driven by industrialization. 

There is certainly industrial and scientific progress led by Western nations. There is more physical comfort today than at any time in the recorded history of any country. But all this come at a heavy price - ecology has been messed up across the globe, probably with much deeper and unpredictable long term consequences. 

But is the world safer today? Do people around the world feel happier and more secure today?

Why Too Many Wars and Conflicts? 

Last ten decades have seen two world wars, a long drawn cold war, and the ongoing war against terror. It tells a different story that does not need much intelligence to decipher. The cold war might be officially over two decades ago with the collapse of USSR, but communism is still alive. 

The Western leaders still see "an axis of evil" that they badly wish to dismantle but are forced to live with. Two Iraq wars and the continuing hide-and-seek "battle" with terrorists in Afghanistan-Pakistan region, and yet there is no certainty that Bin Laden and his clones will be ultimately decimated for good. 

Is the world safer now from terror organizations that it was a decade ago? 

Capitalism vs Communism

The recent economic melt down, particularly of US economy has exposed the glaring flaws of the American model of brazen capitalistic model of growth. The US concept of progress is simple - borrow as much as you can and spend as much as you can, and treat stock market graph as the god given formula for happiness. Sure, when stock market falls flat you are supposed to be unhappy in the same proportion. Further, no system can survive if the most powerful surrender to greed and subordinate their common sense.

The United States’ brand of capitalism and the communist models are both flawed for the same reason: they both treat humans as "robots" and not as "beings". You are slave to the "rich and their riches" in the former and to the State in the later. 

Need to Give Human Touch to Capitalism

Sociologists and economists need to come up with a more humane model of "progress" of the world that offers more dignity and security to people without plundering this wonderful planet. It is going to be a system that incorporates freedom to earn and speak as in capitalism along with assured social security against joblessness, health and clean environment even to the weakest segment.

With trillions in fiscal deficit, involvement in hopelessly unpopular wars, stuck economy, fear of terror deeply ingrained in the psyche, this is probably the best time for the US economists and sociologists to inject some human touch and sanity to their system - if the so-called American dream and lifestyle have to survive.

Unitedworld Executive.