Nós somos a geração afortunada!

Nós somos efectivamente a geração afortunada (pelo menos aqueles que vivem na parte "certa" do mundo). Não temos estado à altura desse privilégio e isso careia sérios riscos. Este artigo do Financial Times FT.com / Comment & analysis / Comment - States must act locally in a globalised world é de um antigo embaixador do RU na ONU e debate como todos devemos actuar no mundo globalizado. É um artigo instrutivo que diz, entre outras coisas, a dado passo: "Within the freedom of choice we currently enjoy is hidden a relatively low level of social responsibility and obligation. We would be making a grave error if we took our current condition for granted" ou, como um editorial do The Economist disse, há alguns anos atrás (já o referi, penso eu, neste blogue), o pecado mortal do século XXI será a complacência.

Naturalmente, isto imbrica em tudo aquilo que diz respeito ao modo como se faz política. O artigo:

"Does the present generation know how lucky it is? It is hard to think of a period in history when peace, prosperity, freedom of choice and an open world have illuminated so many people’s lives. A lot of big things seem to be going right, even if there are plenty of other things going wrong. Yet the globalisation network is vulnerable. Making it last requires leaders to understand, and individuals to support, the action needed to preserve it.

This is a tough call, both between societies and inside them. Within the freedom of choice we currently enjoy is hidden a relatively low level of social responsibility and obligation. We would be making a grave error if we took our current condition for granted. Why? Slowly, the structures and instruments of the state are losing their power to produce what we demand of them. Few policies can cope with the complexity of it all. Too often, the reactive replaces the strategic.

Globalisation and the spread of freedom are not only redistributing to new players, across borders, access to economic growth and political influence, they are changing the relationship between citizen and state, within societies. We take security and prosperity as the norm, but take little care over their component parts. ... Nations have a “sovereign responsibility” to share solutions to shared problems: a no-brainer, you would think. The problem is that culture, identity and politics are going local. This is the paradox of a globalising world: the effects of our interdependence are expanding, but the horizons for willing action are narrowing.

The gap is growing between macro-level policymaking and effective implementation. Government, not just in the UK, is losing its reputation for competence; the citizen is becoming less respectful of authority; and nations are becoming less inclined to put collective priorities before sovereign ones. The mechanism at the heart of this evolution is supposed to be a benevolent one: the spread of freedom of choice to more and more people. Yet its effect is to make co-ordinated government harder. That gives an advantage to malignant forces, human or natural, threatening our fragile, deeply interconnected structures.

The prescription, ..., is to take sovereign responsibility to the local level. The defence against terrorism has to include rejection of it within the community where it hides. Carbon reduction and energy conservation require local targets to be set. Effective prisons, if they are to reduce rather than to feed crime, have to connect with the people who know the inmates or are affected by their crimes. Even with cross-border issues, action is best taken by the neighbours and sub-regions that own the problem.

Global institutions can supply the norms, the finance, the legitimacy or the expertise. But the responsibility has to be pushed lower. The fact is that democratic accountability evaporates when we think globally: another country is to blame, the solution must be someone else’s job. In reality, in a free world, the buck stops with the individual. It is no longer enough to expect government to do the difficult things, such as providing the secure framework, and leave us to get on with enjoying the easier things without interference. We all have to contribute.

That means devolving responsibility to communities that feel a shared identity. It means accepting constraints on freedom, through regulation and deterrence if it is unrealistic to expect them to come voluntarily. But it must be regulation strategically conceived, not an accumulation of laws just to plug the gaps.

The implications of getting the balance wrong, whether in governments trying to assert themselves, or in a reckless banking system, or in the self-indulgent emission of carbon dioxide, or in the reluctance of comfortably-off citizens to give something back to society, must be made more explicit for people in their own home base.

Are we capable of decentralising in order to cope with the downsides of globalisation? While economics, information technology and political rhetoric are going in the other direction, it will be hard. Perhaps climate change will become the issue that drives the point home. It will be one of the great tests of the coming generation. "