Anatomy of the dominant conception of Globalization

The notion of Globalization

Nowadays, the term “globalization” is used quite often, but seldom there is definite understanding behind it. Therefore, before discussing problems concerning globalization, a definition of the term should first be given.

Globalization can be looked at as the process of construction of a culture uniting all of humanity. It is characterized by the integration of different countries and peoples into some common culture, where culture should be understood as all information, that is not transferred genetically in a ready-to-use form in the succession of generations.

Throughout human history, globalization manifests as the process of mutual influence of national cultures on each other. In the past, globalization was stimulated more by international trade and policies of conquest of other territories, whereas today it is stimulated more by technological consolidation of national economies into a single world economy.

Globalization is an objective process: it is happening independent of the will and wishes of people. The reason for this is that any society needs a system of production and distribution of goods, and all people are in one way or another interested in increasing its efficiency, in order to receive more goods while getting more free time. One of the means of increasing the efficiency of this system is the exchange of cultural achievements of different peoples.

The objectivity of globalization is noted by politicians of our time: Vladimir Putin noted this back in 2001 [1], saying:

“I think we should not be afraid of globalization. It is an objective process.”

Globalization was remarked upon by Barack Obama in his 2006 book The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream [2]:

“We can try to slow globalization, but we can’t stop it.”

Obama’s statement also points to the fact that globalization, even though it proceeds objectively, can be subjectively controlled. A certain culture is not genetically programmed for all people, which is why different versions of culture are possible. This means that there is a multitude of variants of the course that globalization can take - a multitude of different scenarios, or conceptions, of constructing a common culture. These conceptions can differ by their aims, to the level of being contradictory in different conceptions, as well as the means of achieving their aims.

Stages of Globalization

Globalization has been taking place throughout the entire life of humanity, but not always people knew about it and understood it. The primary characteristic of the previous stage of globalization is exactly that: the vast majority of people were not aware of it. This was the case due to the fact that the technosphere and the life circumstances of people did not change over long time intervals. With that, the accessibility of information about what is going on in the world was very low, as a result of both low literacy, as well as the low development level of technical means of communication and information storage. Only single individuals had become aware of globalization. That is, globalization proceeded without the vast majority realizing it. And exactly the lack of awareness of globalization by the vast majority of the population facilitated the domination of a single conception – a single project – of globalization, which is the second important characteristic of the previous stage of globalization.

The current stage of globalization is radically different from the previous. Even though at this stage dominates the same conception of managing (controlling) globalization as during the previous stage, management based on the same conception has lead to a dead end — the current systemic crisis: crises in the ecological, economic, and socio-cultural spheres. In certain circles, the systemic management crisis has been named the “general crisis of capitalism”. This crisis became the result of uncontrolled, constantly accelerating technical progress. Technical progress, in turn, gave rise to the change of social behavior logic of people: in the past, technologies, and therefore the life circumstances of people, changed much slower than the change of human generations occurred, which allowed people, after having been educated once, to live their life well. Currently, during the lifetime of one generation, technology changes multiple times, forcing people to constantly re-educate themselves, acquiring both new knowledge and ways of acquiring new knowledge. Information became much more accessible, and constantly accumulating problems force people to look for answers to life’s challenges. This way, the crisis-ridden nature of the current situation, the accessibility of information, and the change of social behavior logic created the circumstances for the increase of awareness of globalization at the level of so-called national “elites”, and partially at the level of ordinary citizens whom it has directly affected. The awareness of globalization consequently facilitated for the creation of several conceptions of globalization (Chinese, Japanese, and Russian conceptions).

Dominating conception of Globalization

The essence of the dominating conception of globalization is the maintenance of a crowd-“elitist” social order. This phenomenon was described back at the end of the XIX century by French sociologist Gustave Le Bon in his book The crowd: Psychology of the popular mind [3]. The name of this phenomenon speaks for itself: crowd-“elitism” assumes the stratification of society into the crowd and the so-called “elite”. By the definition of V.G. Belinsky [4],

“A crowd is a gathering of people who live by tradition and reason based on authority.”

The “elite”, being more informed about social processes, maintains the vast majority (the crowd) in submission. Access to information means higher management quality, maintained by the “elite”, providing it with a monopoly on management services that allows it to set as high a price for its services as it wishes, thereby exploiting the crowd. Maintenance of such a social order is the main aim of the dominant conception of globalization.

As stated above, the means of realizing the same aims may be different. Accordingly, there are a number of versions of the dominant variant of globalization, which are tuned to realize its aim in different ways. All these versions, in one way or another, manifest in the present.

The first of them, bourgeois liberalism, has the following characteristics:

• It is based on the cult of individualism, excessively elevating the single personality and its interests over those of society.
• It assumes a liberal-market economy – market production-consumption relations and withdrawal of state control from the economy, which generates social stratification into the rich and the poor.
• The social status depends on one’s financial sufficiency, the result of which is low social security of the majority of people. Nominally, everyone has equal rights, but in practice, not everyone can realize them: only rich individuals (bourgeois) are able to realize their rights to their full extent.
• It declares the principle of tolerance and pluralism of opinions, which is why it allows for co-existence of several religious confessions.

The second variant, Marxist pseudo-socialism, is very different from the liberal variant, and assumes:

• A forceful, revolutionary-terroristic worldwide transfer to pseudo-socialism and establishment of a dictatorship of the "worldwide proletariat".
• An exclusively state-planned economy.
• A single ideology and lack of tolerance for other ideologies.
• A very low level of individualistic freedoms in comparison to bourgeois liberalism.
• A high level of social security due to the cessation of the consumption race and provisioning of demographic needs of the population by the planned economy [5].

The third variant is convergence of Marxist pseudo-socialism and bourgeois liberalism, which assumes “taking the best” of both, in particular:

• Partial preservation of bourgeois freedoms accessible to individuals under bourgeois liberalism, but also toughening the balancing of individual freedoms and social needs. Currently, this manifests in communitarian ideas, which call for social well-being through understanding the consequences of excessively strengthening individual rights [6];
• A combination of state-planned and market economic mechanisms;
• A high level of social security: resolution of the ecological crisis of the biosphere (since the consumption race will be stopped by a state-planned economy) and satisfaction of demographic needs of the population.

The fourth variant is a pseudo-Islamic worldwide caliphate. This variant is largely similar to Marxist pseudo-socialism, as a result of which it has been named “the Green International” in some circles:

• By definition, a “caliphate” is an Islamic theocratic state; however the variant is called pseudo-Islamic because it contradicts the essence of the Quran.
• Like Marxist pseudo-socialism, it assumes a forceful transition to a different ideology — an ideology of “radical Islam” — by means of that, which is today called “Islamic fundamentalism / extremism”.
• This variant manifests today in the Middle East, where the “Arab Spring” has replaced relatively peaceful regimes by radical pseudo-Islamic forces (in Libya, Egypt, and other countries), and generated tendencies for the formation of a caliphate with an aggressive attitude: the devastation caused by destruction during the “Arab Spring” leads to social unrest, and “ignites” the society in the same way as it happened in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s.
• This variant accomplishes the same goals as the Marxist variant - cessation of the consumption race, and of the spread of the individualism cult. The only difference is the ideology under the banners of which this is done: “radical Islam” instead of Marxism.

Dominant culture: Accomplishments and problems

Of all variants of the currently dominating conception, in the current culture of Earth dominates one variant: bourgeois liberalism. This culture may be called dominant because it is prevalent in one form or another throughout the world. With that, it is more clearly expressed in the West, especially in the USA, and the West is one of the main drivers of this globalization variant. The traits of bourgeois liberalism will be further discussed below.

Individualism

The first and foremost trait of the dominant culture is individualism. Individualism is a certain form of worldview, which emphasizes the priority of personal aims and interests, freedom of the individual from the rest of society. Individualism is prevalent mainly in the West and is actively spreading to other regions. In reality, Western individualism has degenerated to atomism — an understanding that society consists of absolutely dissociated individuals, relying only on themselves with no obligations to each other. It is easily seen by observing current marketing techniques, which are targeted at the single individual: “You”, “your time”, “your interests”, “specially for you”, iPad, and other I-products.

It has been established multiple times in psychological research that one of the basic needs of a person is belonging to a group [7], a necessity for a positive social identity: the feeling of being a member of a group, personal awareness of being a member of the group/groups along with a positive emotional meaning attributed to this membership [8]. That is, atomism (extreme individualism) contradicts the basic needs of a person. In the end, complete freedom of a person from others will only cause harm.

Giving an evaluation to this aspect of the dominating culture, it can be said that, on one hand, it widens the possibilities of personal development and growth, and widens the range of application of an individual’s abilities. On the other hand, it develops egoism, which leads to a contradiction between the aims of the individual and objective needs of society. Moreover, a human cannot become a personality outside of society, since a personality does not exist outside the system of social relations — it is initially socially determined [9], an example of which are cases of real “Tarzans” — those raised by other species in the biosphere or those having lived through social isolation [10].

Additionally, certain consumerist pretentions of an individualist completely ignore the fact that a lifestyle of excessive consumption is incompatible with ecological stability of the biosphere. With that, modern individualism generates an inclination towards hedonism — a life with the purpose of receiving pleasure and pathological consumption of material goods, which likewise leads to overuse of limited natural resources. A destruction of the family also takes place, caused by reluctance to have children: lately, in many so-called “developed” countries, has spread the “childfree” ideology.

Liberal-market economic model

A capitalistic, liberal market economy is characteristic to the dominant culture in the West. It assumes profit as the main value and end-goal, as well as withdrawal of state control from the economy. Bourgeois liberalism is closely related to atomism, since it is based on personal interest, private property, and private entrepreneurship. Usury (charging of an interest rate for borrowed money) is also characteristic to the liberal-market economy, and is considered a normal practice in all Western countries [11].
Talking about the source of this economic model, it should be mentioned that back in ancient Greece, as a result of the reforms done by Solon in VI century B.C., was established private manufacturing of goods aimed specifically at the market, private property relations, and a social order based on division of citizens into classes. That is, a social order based upon the level of property ownership. Usury was a normal practice as well. Usury is also mentioned in the Bible, both in a positive sense (in terms of it being acceptable and allowed) in Deuteronomy (23: 19-20), as well as in a negative sense in Exodus (22:25), Leviticus (25:35 - 37) and Ezekiel (18:11-13). Modern capitalism, according to German sociologist Max Weber [12], stems from one of the Christian movements — Calvinist Protestantism, which includes a notion that righteousness manifests in personal success in society, in material wealth. Calvinism encouraged usury as a natural method of obtaining profit, and the Western civilization developed mostly with usury allowed as a common practice [13].

The liberal-market economy promotes opportunities for private capital, for start-up business activity, lowers the influence of state bureaucracy on the national economy, and promotes a pragmatic, rational approach to enterprise organization. At the same time, however, the principle “profit for its own sake” is followed in detriment to the environment and people’s health. For example, technologies of planned obsolescence to artificially stimulate demand, implementation of hazardous technologies to lower the cost of agrarian products (e.g. GMO), and technologies of shale gas procurement.

It should be noted, that no economy can exist without planning. The market is one of the economic means of circulating goods, and is incapable of setting aims with respect to the state economy and the lifestyle of its citizens. Consequently, under the declaration of a “free market”, the planning function is de-facto transferred to large transnational corporations, which are self-interested. This way, the interests of private corporations are elevated with detriment to interests of society. This was well expressed in 1953 by General Motors president and defense secretary of the USA Charles Erwin Wilson: answering a question, whose interests will be more important for the future defense secretary – those of the country, or those of his enterprise – Wilson answered [14]:

“...for years I thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa. The difference did not exist.” 

But exactly this approach to scientific and technological progress (primarily as a means of making money) has resulted in the current ecological crisis.

With that, there exists a dictatorship of finances in all spheres - not the real sector of the economy plays the determining role, but credit and financial institutions, and the speculative sector of the economy, which do not produce anything.

Liberal-market economy also generates mass poverty. This happens in both third-world countries, where poverty is caused by exploitation of these countries by so-called “developed” countries, as well as in “developed” countries themselves, where poverty is generated by the falling-out of people from the constantly changing technological order. Current unemployment statistics in Europe, reaching over 25% in some countries, is a clear demonstration of this fact [15]; in England exists the term “energy poverty”: it is applied to households which spend more than 10% of their earnings only on heating their home, and according to information from the English government, in 2011, 11% of all households in England were assigned this status [16].

Development of science and technology

Within the bounds of the liberal-market economy, development of science and technology is submitted to the main principle of this economic model — making money (profit). As a result, technological progress has surpassed moral progress of society, and in many cases technology brings humanity harm.
Development of technology promoted an improvement in quality of life of part of the population, since the satisfaction of demographic needs increased, and with the increase of the amount of information, as well as simplification of access to it, the change of social behavior logic occurred as described above. Along with that, pollution of the environment and a decrease in biodiversity occurs, creating the potential for an ecological catastrophe, as stated in the WWF report for 2012 [17].

The threat of technological catastrophes also exists: either wars that include the use of weapons of mass destruction, or other catastrophes, like the recent explosion of the Fukushima nuclear plant and the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. In addition to that, excessive use of and reliance on objects of the technosphere make people and humanity in general a hostage of the technosphere; the human does not develop himself, but relies on elements of the technosphere as on prostheses.

Additionally, universal megapolis urbanization, which became possible in its current state due to development of technology, has a series of benefits, but is generally detrimental to the health of people. In cities, the rate of psychological and physical disorders increases, the regeneration of a healthy population becomes impossible due to the mutagenic effect of the megapolis on genes. This was confirmed back in the 1940s by Soviet geneticist N. Dubinin: his experiments on fruit flies showed that the flies mutated in an urban environment in the succession of generations, but restored to their initial healthy state outside the technosphere of the city [18].

Declaration of Human Rights

Since the revolutionary movement in Western Europe in the XIX century, a large accent is made in the Western world on the respect for inalienable human rights. Human rights are prescribed in many international agreements, the most commonly known being the UN Declaration of Human Rights [19]. On one hand, it is very good and correct, since the inalienable human rights and equality of everyone before God are declared.

However, if the situation is examined more closely, it can be understood that declaring human rights is not sufficient for their realization, since attention is not emphasized on the duties and responsibilities of the human to society, which is a fundamental and necessary principle for observing human rights. There are also double-standards in observing human rights, and, as stated above, although de-jure everyone has equal rights, de-facto in practice only more financially sufficient people can realize their rights to their full capacity.

Declarations of human rights are accompanied by declarations of tolerance. In political reality, tolerance is expressed as the obligation of an individual to endure the existence of opinions or phenomena that are unacceptable or condemned by him. But tolerance is positive in the sense that it allows the possibility of dissent and its expression, at least by declaration. However, double standards are developed in expressing tolerance, due to the presence of a single, commonly understood political agenda. The principle of tolerance also causes issues with solving intercultural and interreligious disputes and discrepancies, since the common practice is to avoid noticing them. For example, there are a number of discrepancies between Christianity and Islam, which become the reason for real interethnic conflicts, but conflicts are not resolved since it is not acceptable to discuss these discrepancies.

Understanding of Justice

A certain understanding of justice is intrinsic to the dominant culture: what does not contradict the written law is considered just. This view was expressed by politician P. Pestel in the XIX century in his work Russian Truth [20]:

“People everywhere are such as they are formed by the rule and Law under which they live.”

Analogously, Barack Obama in his Audacity of Hope notes [21]:

“... our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.” 

This way, Barack Obama mentioned the Bible as well, as one of the “source codes” of Western culture, which the West rests upon.

Although this approach to the understanding of justice highly simplifies resolution of cases in court, its downsides are much more considerable: since the personal responsibility in determining what is right and what is wrong is transferred to the state, there are no bounds to committing crimes under the confidence that one’s fault cannot be proven. It also opens the possibility for a system of interpreters of the law, and the possibility of distortion of its meaning.

“Exceptionalism”

One of the fundamental attitudes formed by the dominant culture is ethnocentrism — perception of other cultures through the prism of one’s own, where the norms and values of one’s own culture are considered natural and correct, while all that is different is considered incorrect and outdated [22]. In Western culture, this manifests as a feeling of a certain “exceptionalism”, exaltation of one’s own culture over “outdated” ones (in some cases up to the level of being “God’s Chosen People”) and in dual standards: a feeling of the rights to do things others cannot due to their underdevelopment. This state of matters is described in the recent work of John Hobson The Eurocentric conception of World Politics. It is also clear from Barack Obama’s UN speech, given on the 24th of September of this year, where he affirmed that America has the right to intervene in the internal matters of other states simply because of its “exceptionalism” [23]. This phenomenon is also demonstrated by the history of colonization by Western states, for example the European colonization of the American continent.
Evaluating this aspect of dominant culture, it should be positively noted that the feeling of some exceptionalism promotes the unity of people, and the possibilities open up to change a situation in other regions by going beyond the permissible limits. But in reality, as practice shows, such an approach is extremely destructive: it results in crude actions without understanding the peculiarities of the regions with which it deals; infamously known are the results of actions by the USA and Europe (in the face of NATO) in the Middle East, even though they were accompanied by declarations of good will. This approach also automatically generates international crowd-"elitism", where the “exceptional” people are the “elite” and other peoples are the crowd, accompanied by exploitation of peoples by the “exceptional” people.

Perspectives of future peaceful co-existence of the Western Civilization and other regions

The question of the future of the western civilization in conjunction with other regions can be approached through the aforementioned variants of the dominant conception: the currently dominating bourgeois liberalism, Marxist pseudo-socialism, convergence, and pseudo-Islamic caliphate.

Bourgeois liberalism, since it does not assume a resolution of the ecological crisis, can likely lead to a catastrophe of the biosphere. For this reason, this variant simply cannot be considered as a perspective one — it is suicidal for humanity.

The other three variants all have one thing in common: they stop the consumption race, i.e. they solve the ecological crisis. But as it was mentioned earlier, the caliphate and the Marxist pseudo-socialism variants assume a forceful transition to other ideologies, and are therefore not peaceful. Consequently, they are the least desirable. However, there are tendencies towards the development of a conflict between the Christian and Islamic worlds, as a result of the partial realization of the variant assuming the formation of a pseudo-Islamic caliphate. These tendencies can be counteracted by objective coverage of events concerning Muslim states in the mass media, since many Western, especially American mass media, tend to cover events in the Near East from a position that generates an image of “demonic Muslims”. Also, politicians and ordinary citizens should allow the holy scriptures of these religions — the Bible and the Quran — into their spectrum of curiosity, in order to adequately understand both religions, allowing to understand and resolve conflicts themselves.

Another circumstance should be mentioned, which is imposed by the change of social behavior logic and directly affects the social order. Crowd-“elitism” is based on separation of knowledge systems: for the “elite” — more holistic knowledge, for the crowd — fragmentary knowledge. Based on this separation, in the ancient times a caste-based society was normal, since in the conditions of an invariable technological order, knowledge and skills could be inherited. Inherited knowledge not only fed the children and grandchildren, but also facilitated a growth of people’s professionalism in different spheres. In other words, the crowd-“elitist” social order was in a certain sense adequate to the circumstances of life. However, nowadays every generation lives in a constantly changing technological environment. Knowledge and skills become outdated very quickly, which requires the cultivation of the ability to quickly re-educate to a different skill set: this is the key feature of the new social behavior logic. This state of matters makes a system of inheritance of professionalism very unstable and inadequate to current circumstances. With some will, one can easily get involved in any sphere of social activity, and be more qualified than inherited masters in that sphere — the internet allows one to find practically any information. This is exactly why crowd-“elitism”, as a model of social order, will fade into the past and will be replaced by a completely different social order, although it is reasonable to expect attempts at conserving the crowd-“elitist” social order due to inertial thinking of people, especially of the so-called “elite”.

Considering the above, the most probable development scenario of the currently dominating globalization variant is convergence of Western states towards ideas of socialism. The thoughts of D. Strauss-Kahn lie in this direction [24]:

“... we need a new globalization for a new world—a globalization with a human face, where people come first, and where growth and equity always go together. We must rely on the market for growth, but the invisible hand must not become the invisible fist.”

Analogously, Benedict XVI, in his third encyclical letter Charity in Truth spoke about the necessity for different approaches to globalization, about abandoning the principle of profit as the exclusive goal [25]; the same position is voiced by the current Pope Francis [26]. Partial examples of this already exist in Europe (Sweden) and in South America (Cuba). The views expressed by Barack Obama in The Audacity of Hope back in 2006 [2], as well as his presidential campaign promises, lie in the course of convergence, but have yet to be materialized. Convergence is a guarantee of peaceful coexistence of different regions, since it assumes a reformational, gradual transition towards socialistic ideas without acute shock to society.

The only remaining question is, what aims will be set in doing this: to maintain the one and the same crowd-”elitism”, but in other forms? — Then it will be pseudo-socialism; to implement the ideas eliminating exploitation of man by man? — Then it will be real socialism. But the latter is a completely different goal, and therefore — a different conception of globalization, a different type of social order.

An alternative view of convergence was presented by us at the conference on the 22nd of March, 2013 in the presentation of Mark Amirov: http://newyouthpolicy.org/en/articles-en/112-article-brussel-22-marta-2013, watch the presentation on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_RmLUKr1n8.

This article is based on the presentation “The Dominant conception of Globalization”, presented in Brussels on 22.11.2013.

Next article in the cycle «Globalization — the new stage»: What is the East Suggesting to the world at the new stage of Globalization? http://newyouthpolicy.org/en/articles-en/207-east-project-of-globalization-en

[1] — Answers to questions of APEC conference participants, October 19, 2001 — http://archive.kremlin.ru/appears/2001/10/19/0001_type63376type63377_28672.shtml

[2] — Book: Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope. Thoughts on reclaiming the American dream. — http://elbooka.com/kniga/kniga-proza/1278-barak-obama-derzost-nadezhdy.html

[3] — Gustave Le Bon. The Crowd: A study of the popular mind http://archive.org/stream/crowdastudypopu00bongoog#page/n5/mode/2up

[4] — V. G. Belinsky, Collection of works in 9 volumes. Vol. 3, Articles, critiques, notes. Feb 1840 – Feb. 1841. http://az.lib.ru/b/belinskij_w_g/text_2110.shtml

[5] — A type of an individual’s needs, the satisfaction of which facilitates the life of individuals and their families, as well as personal development (food, clothing, housing, education, social services, free time, etc). About their role in the economy a presentation was done in Kiev: “Alternative view of the conception of sustainable development” (in Russian): video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCd09hkmdko, presentation material - http://prezi.com/hbxl4qhaa0pn/economical-lesson/

[6] — Such notions are popular in particular among social psychologists, for example: D. Myers, Social Psychology.

[7] — The need for affiliation - a person's need to feel a sense of involvement and "belonging" within a social group. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Need_for_affiliation

[8] — Tajfel H. Social Categorization, Social Identity and Social Comparison. In H. Tajfel (Ed.) Differentiation between Social Group / L.: Academic Press, 1978. P.61-76.

[9] — A. N. Leontyev. Activity. Conscious. Personality. Мoscow, 1975.

[10] — Wikipedia: Feral Child — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child, Also, the most well known wild children (in Russian) — http://www.molomo.ru/inquiry/wild_child.html

[11] — On the effects of interest rate on the economy, video “Who does everyone owe?” (Russian): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I35weJXlZNQ

[12] Max Weber. The Protestant ethic and the spirit of Capitalism — http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/jhamlin/1095/The%20Protestant%20Ethic%20and%20the%20Spirit%20of%20Capitalism.pdf

[13] — However, in the history of the West there was one exception – the so-called “Temple Period” from the XI to XIII centuries, when, on the contrary, a negative interest rate existed: payment for saving (storing) money. During this time happened an unprecedented growth of production of goods and agrarian products, a fast population growth in Europe, grandiose construction of temples (hence the name of the period).

[14] — That was the initial statement made by Wilson. However, it is cited more popularly as “What’s good for General Motors is good for America” – a misquote that Wilson eventually accepted and did not object to. http://www.freep.com/article/20080914/BUSINESS01/809140308/GM-s-Engine-Charlie-Wilson-learned-live-misquote

[15] — EU Unemployment rates, seasonally adjusted, September 2013 — http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php?title=File:Unemployment_rates,_seasonally_adjusted,_September_2013.png&filetimestamp=20131031081243

[16] — Fuel Poverty Report Updated August 2013. Department of Energy and Climate Change, UK — https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/226985/fuel_poverty_report_2013.pdf

[17] — An extract from the 2012 WWF report: “Biodiversity has declined globally by around 30% between 1970 and 2008; by 60% in the tropics. … Areas of high biodiversity provide important ecosystem services such as carbon storage, fuel wood, freshwater flow and marine fish stocks. Loss of biodiversity and related ecosystem services particularly impacts the world’s poorest peoples who rely most directly on these services to survive. … Natural capacity - biodiversity, ecosystems and ecosystem services - must be preserved and, where necessary, restored a the foundation of human economies and societies.” http://awsassets.panda.org/downloads/lpr_2012_summary_booklet_final.pdf

[18] — N. P. Dubinin. Perpetual movement. 1973. http://publ.lib.ru/ARCHIVES/D/DUBININ_Nikolay_Petrovich/_Dubinin_N.P..html

[19] — Universal Declaration of Human Rights. United Nations. http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

[20] — P. Pestel. Russian Truth. 1825. (Russian) http://www.history.ru/content/view/1148/87/1/15/

[22] — Berry, John W; Poortinga, Ype H; Segall, Marshall H; Dasen, Pierre R (2002), Cross-cultural psychology: Research and applications (2nd ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-64617-0, retrieved 24 June 2010 - http://books.google.ru/books?id=Z_7k7Xj28ncC 

[23] — Remarks by President Obama in Address to the United Nations General Assembly. 24 September 2013. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/09/24/remarks-president-obama-address-united-nations-general-assembly

[24] — Human Development and Wealth Distribution. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director, International Monetary Fund. Agadir, November 1, 2010 http://www.imf.org/external/np/speeches/2010/110110.htm

[25] — Encyclical letter “Caritas in Veitate” of the supreme pontiff Benedict XVI. http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate_en.html

[26] — The pope criticizes “wild capitalism” and the “money cult” — RT: http://russian.rt.com/article/18914