THE INCOME gap between the rich and the poor is getting wider and wider. The reason for this growing income disparity is structural in nature and could only be addressed by way of a new global human order. In this article, I propose to examine some of the key elements of this new global order as adumbrated by the late Dr. Cheddi Jagan. Since then, the situation has deteriorated sharply with rising unemployment rates, bankruptcies, and social unrest in a number of countries including Western Europe notably Greece and Spain among others. Under the auspices of the Government of Guyana, a Conference was held on August 1-4 1996 at the Auditorium of the Sophia National Exhibition Park, Georgetown, Guyana to discuss and develop a framework for the realization of this new global dispensation. Participants at that Conference included thinkers and social activists from the developed and the developing world as well as a wide cross-section of the Guyanese society. Dr. Jagan, whose brainchild it was, articulated his ideas and concepts at the Conference which in summary form is reproduced below.

The scientific and technological revolution and the information revolution have transformed our world to a point where mankind is in a position to benefit from enhanced prosperity. However, this expectation has not been realized despite the ending of the Cold War between the Socialist World headed by the Soviet Union and the Capitalist World headed by the United States. The New World Order proclaimed by US President George Bush based on world peace and stability proved to be nothing but a mirage. On the contrary, there is today greater tension in the world especially with respect to the Middle East and Asia, in particular Iran, Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, Pakistan and North Korea.

In the case of Iraq, despite elections over six months ago, a government of national unity is still to be formed as the sectarian groups fail to agree on who should form and lead the government. A similar situation had developed in Afghanistan where both the presidential and parliamentary elections were marred by widespread voting irregularities.

Instead of order, there is greater disorder. One reason for this is the fact that there is a contradiction between the development of the productive forces and the increasing deterioration of the quality of live resulting in growing poverty and increasing inequality. This tense situation is also manifested in growing xenophobia as is currently the case of the expelled gypsies by the French government and the anti-immigrant stance taken in some countries of Europe and the United States. These are shameful episodes in our contemporary political and social landscape and should be condemned by all progressive forces.

At the economic level, mega blocs with powerful economic centres exist with countries from the developed world while others, mainly in the developing world, continue to be agricultural. It is obvious that with globalization based on liberalization, those lagging behind in modernization will face marginalization and it consequent dangers. These dangers are already manifesting themselves in a variety of ways in particular in the growing levels of global poverty and inequity.

The gap in living standards between the rich and the poor in both the North and the South is, as mentioned before, getting wider: the rich are getting richer at the expense of the poor. According to the United Nations, 1.2 billion people in the developing world live in absolute poverty; almost double 1984 figures and hunger, especially in sub-Saharan Africa have grown significantly. One in every two children is starving or malnourished and diseased. UNICEF and UNDP figures showed that over six million children under the age of five had died each year since 1992 in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

A former World Bank President, the late Lewis T Preston noted in a report that two billion people were without clean water and three million children died each year from malnutrition. And as if these were not enough, consider the following facts:

-each year, roughly 13 million children, under 5, die from easily preventable diseases and malnutrition.
– nearly 200 million moderately to severely malnourished under- five in developing countries. Some 69 million are severely malnourished.

-in developing countries, 130 million children, almost two thirds of them girls, lack access to primary education. All of this happening in a world where there is boast of economic growth and prosperity which theoretically was supposed to ‘lift all boats.’

The frightening thing is that poverty is likely to increase due to the current economic and financial crisis which would put even larger numbers of working people in the breadline. Around 800 people are unemployed or underemployed and the numbers are increasing as a result of stagnation and sluggish growth rates. To cope with this situation, roughly 40 million jobs are needed to be created annually, an impossible task. What we are experiencing is the phenomenon of ‘jobless growth’ and ‘jobless recovery.’ The recent economic and financial crisis has demonstrated that the easiest and fastest way of dealing with such crisis is to drastically cut the wage bill in particular for the lower income workers while those at the upper echelons continue to benefit from juicy salaries. In the final analysis, it is the ordinary workers who are forced to carry the full burden of the crisis situations.

All of the above underscore the need for a new global human order which put people and not profits at the centre of any development process.