The World's Money: Expanding the Agenda for Research

Abstract

One of the biggest changes of recent years in the realm of ideas and in the way people habitually think about the human condition has been the move toward global thinking. Looking back over even the last ten years, it seems striking how easily and quickly people's perceptions have changed. As individual horizons have widened with television, air travel, and falling communication costs, so has the sense, not just of being involved willy-nilly in an international society, but of participating in some sort of world system. The study of international relations has become that of world politics.1 Global ecology has become a widely popular theme, and the environmental groups and parties which are beginning to play a political role in so many countries probably have more in common with each other than have the socialist or even the conservative parties they challenge. The concept of the 'global commons' has become an element in everyday diplomacy, as has that of 'basic human needs' which transcend political frontiers. In the early 1970s the Club of Rome started what is now an established industry and profession of world modelling. Budding corporate executives in business schools around the world are in-