Social Justice in an Open World: The Role of the United Nations
nant political culture of the time, it is a culture that essentially reflects the interests and views of the most powerful actors on the international scene. It represents a regression in the conception and practice of international cooperation that has been gaining momentum since the creation of the United Nations. The following points were made during the course of the Forum meetings: Goal 8, with its pragmatic dryness and absence of ambition, bears no resemblance to the values and principles highlighted at the beginning of the Millennium Declaration. Equality, solidarity and shared responsibilitycannot be reduced, when it comes to relations between developed and developing countries, to open trade, partnerships with the private sector, and traditional aid for the least developed countries. When there is such a disconnection between values and policies, one is forced to conclude that the values represent little more than empty rhetoric and that policies are made in accordance with the traditional requirements of political realism. Goal 8 reflects a remarkable degree of faith in the benevolence of the private sector and in its capacity to bring development to all nations of the world. When private economic and financial forces, with the support of powerful Governments, dominate the world economy so completely, which entities will be able to "cooperate" with these forces from a position of strength or simply on equal terms? The United Nations? A developing country? A group of them? The history of capitalism shows that an economic system serves a nation or region well when it is regulated, controlled and balanced by political forces and legitimate political powers. A fortiori, global capitalism requires global political control and the development of international laws and regulations to steer it towards the common good and ensure that it benefits the maximum number of people and nations. The United Nations should pave the way, intellectually and politically, for such an enlightened and democratic management of globalization. Another management concern is that Goal 8 does not address the financing of development and global public goods or the global threats that are part of the process of achieving and sustaining openness, interdependence and globalization. Questions of national and global taxation are ignored. If the Monterrey Consensus of the International Conference on Financing for Development, which was adopted after the Millennium Declaration, has the value that is commonly attributed to it, its provisions should at some point have been incorporated in the Millennium Development Goals. Might the occasion of the 2005 review of the Millennium commitments and goals have been the time to do this? To earmark an increasing proportion of (and eventually all) official development assistance for least developed countries is to give it a connotation of temporary charity. It might be more expedient, in the light of emerging global problems and threats and the requirements of international justice, for the United Nations to consider such assistance a point of departure for a world redistribution system.