The Club Of Rome – Archive Article
December 10, 2008

RADIO 2GB NEWS COMMENTARY BROADCAST ON FRIDAY NOVEMBER 26 1999 ON RADIO 2GB’S “BRIAN WILSHIRE PROGRAMME” AT 9 PM, AND ON NOVEMBER 28 1999 ON “SUNDAY NIGHT LIVE” AT 10.30 PM.

We are living in a world of great change. It is important that our thinking keeps up to date with all the changes that are taking place.

I have just returned from the 1999 Conference of The Club of Rome held in Vienna. The Club of Rome is an international think tank of 100 people which looks at international problems from an interdisciplinary perspective.

The Club of Rome first made its name with the book Limits to Growth in 1972, which remains the world’s biggest selling book on the environment. The book appeared at a time of rapid economic growth which people assumed – in both the capitalist and communist countries – would continue indefinitely. The book argued that there would be environmental consequences to the high rate of economic growth.

That point of view is now commonplace. Even children now talk about items being “bio-degradable“. But at the time, that was a very controversial argument because people assumed that the good economic times would go on forever. The Club of Rome attracted a lot of controversy because it was giving an unpopular message.

The Club of Rome has continued issuing reports on contemporary matters, with recent ones on the role of the mass media and how to improve the quality of politics and politicians.

At the 1999 Conference, the Club of Rome examined the Iron Triangle of Globalization, Governance and Sustainable Development. It argued that these three matters need to be examined together and that all three require far more attention by politicians.

Proof of the importance of the Club of Rome agenda has occurred in the last few days. The rowdy demonstrations at this week’s meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle, Washington State have shown that there is a considerable public worry about what is happening to the global trading order: the rich are getting richer and the poor are becoming more numerous.

The Club of Rome Conference examined the way that globalization is not entirely good or bad. It depends on how it is used. But the current problem is that globalization is examined in a fragmentary way. Therefore, governments, non-governmental organizations and individuals need to both give more priority to the role of globalization and to do so in a more holistic way. If they do not, then the events we have seen in Seattle will get worse as people become more and more alarmed about what the process of globalization is doing to them.

The Club of Rome has recommended that there has to be a socially responsible globalization. It is not enough for governments simply to try to leave everything to the market. The market system is good for ensuring economic growth but not for distributing the wealth.

This means new ways of how the world is organized. For example, the Club of Rome again discussed the need to introduce some form of Tobin Tax, which would be a turnover tax on foreign exchange speculations, with the proceeds going to help global society. The new global order requires this type of new global thinking.