South By North Strategies, Ltd.

In a recent op-ed, French political scientist Dominique Moisi wonders how to help the poor in an increasingly globalized world.

It would be absurd to condemn, as some do, globalization as the main and only culprit in the erosion of traditional sources of support for the poor. Globalization is above all a context, an environment, even if the consequences of the first major financial and economic crisis of the global age will further deepen the gap between the very rich and the very poor.
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But globalization makes the weakest among us more visible, and therefore makes the absence of social justice more unacceptable. A world of much greater transparency and interdependency creates new responsibilities for the rich. Or, more precisely, it makes the old responsibility to protect the weakest both more difficult and more urgent.
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In a world of increasing complexity, perhaps what is needed are simple solutions. One could follow, for example, Adam Smith’s principle of comparative advantage: what Europe does best is the state, while Asia still relies on the family and the US continues to focus on individual initiative. The problem is that in a world of universal benchmarking, the legitimacy of solutions will stem more than ever from their cultural acceptability and their efficiency.

He goes on to conclude the following:

Globalization does appear to have weakened cultural differences noticeably in the past decade. But, when it comes to the protection of the weakest and the struggle against rising social injustice, perhaps “global deculturation” creates an opportunity to combine the best of what remains in particular traditions. Perhaps countries should seek to base their social-welfare systems on a new synthesis of the state, the family, and philanthropy.