Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-x24gv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-01T04:07:52.386Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - Four Lessons from the Present Global Financial Crisis for the 21st Century: An Essay on Global Transformation from a European Perspective

from Part One - Theoretical and Analytical Reflections on Global Governance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 March 2012

Dirk Messner
Affiliation:
University Duisburg-Essen
Get access

Summary

All ages come to an end. The Ice Age was succeeded by the Bronze Age, the Renaissance was followed by the Reformation, great powers have succeeded one another, Rome, Great Britain, the US(Senge et al. 2008, 7). Nothing's here to stay. With the present financial crisis, another age is drawing to a close – but not, as many globalization critics may think with glee, the age of globalization. What we now see going down is an international order in which the Western societies are the center and the measure of all things (the G7 is a reflection of this eroding constellation of power), the age of industrialization (based as it was on the delusion of an infinite supply of natural resources and infinite capacities of the atmosphere, the oceans and the global forests to absorb greenhouse gas emissions and other collateral wastes of our consumption patterns), and the illusion that the nation-state could, despite accelerating globalization, somehow just muddle on as it has in the course of the past 200 years. The concern now is to create a truly viable, sustainable globalization that accepts the global challenges of the twenty-first century.

Type
Chapter
Information
Power Shifts and Global Governance
Challenges from South and North
, pp. 31 - 44
Publisher: Anthem Press
Print publication year: 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×