Millennium Musings






				Millennium Musings The Year 2000. In all the excitement surrounding the countdown to January 1, it is easy to lose sight of how arbitrary this milestone is. For those in the non-Western world not using our calendar, the 365 days between January 1 and December 31 are just one more year. Yet, if nothing else, this celebration gives us a chance to place the time in which we live into some historical context — to better understand how we got to where we are and to make more thoughtful assessments about where we are headed. "Use experience," urge Kennedy School Professors Richard Neustadt and Ernest May in the preface to Thinking in Time, "whether remote or recent, in the process of deciding what to do today about the prospect for tomorrow." With that in mind, we asked several members of the Kennedy School community to identify the major events of the passing millennium that have shaped a particular part of our world and to speculate on what lies ahead. Some identified only historical milestones, others made only predictions, while still others did both. Their comments follow. Education Paul E. Peterson Henry Lee Shattuck Professor of Government As every schoolchild once knew, events associated with two specific dates — 1455 and 1517 — decisively transformed the educational institutions of the West. The invention of the Gutenberg printing press undermined the monopoly on learning exercised by the medieval monastery. No longer was the examination of ancient manuscripts laboriously transcribed and illustrated by devout monks, an all but exclusive province of those who held the keys to the heavenly kingdom. Once the Bible went into mass production, peasants and tradesfolk no longer learned their spiritual lessons just by contemplating the statuary adorning cathedral doors. Bible reading was integral to the Protestant Revolution that swept northern Europe in the 16th century. After Martin Luther nailed his theses to the church door in Wittenberg, he translated the Bible from Latin to German, thereby creating a common written language for German--speaking people. The same was done for English speakers by those assigned a similar task by King James I. So effective was this education that even today it unwittingly shapes American speech patterns and rhythms. But it was John Calvin, even more than Luther, who laid the spiritual groundwork for universal learning. Because Calvinists insisted that faith be rooted not in ritualistic practice but by direct encounter with God's Word, they made reading a religious requirement. When Calvinists arrived in America, John Harvard among them, they established seminaries and colleges expected to sustain both the intellectual and spiritual well-being of their community. In Europe, elements within the Catholic church, most notably the Jesuits, responded by making education the most effective centerpiece of the counter-Reformation. So as late as the 17th century, education was still considered more the domain of the spiritual than the temporal world. With the rise of powerful nation-states — Spain, England, France, eventually Germany and Italy — education became increasingly secularized, first within universities, but gradually extending downward to include even kindergarten. Those who sought to build powerful nation-states, most notably Germany's iron chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, discovered that a secular public school provided a remarkable tool for nation building. The forces at work within the United States were not all that different from those visible in Europe. Originally, learning the three R's was left to home and church. But when Catholic immigrants from Ireland and Germany threatened New England's Calvinist culture, Horace Mann persuaded the Massachusetts legislature to compel all parents to see to their children's education. Just as Bismarck wanted schools to unite a diverse German population, public school advocates in the United States saw education as a vehicle for achieving a uniform culture among an increasingly heterogeneous people. In the last century of the millennium, nation builders of all stripes, from Stalin and Mussolini to Nehru, Sukarno, and the World Bank, have found state control of education to their liking, not just as an engine for economic development, but, more importantly, as a means for achieving political integration. Today most everyone, whether liberal or conservative, democrat or authoritarian, has concluded that the modern state requires universal, compulsory, state-financed education. But now that education has been securely tied to the power of the state, new issues pose themselves for resolution. Why does the schoolchild no longer know the century, much less the year, the printing press was invented or the Reformation began? How can government sponsorship of education be reconciled with liberty and diversity? Do governments have the zeal and conviction that effective education seems to require? Or do state-controlled education systems, like an unchallenged universal church, eventually become ossified and corrupt? If so, will a new reformation challenge the dominance of the state-controlled system? As the millennium reaches its conclusion, public demand for choice and variety in education has begun to increase. Are the reformers of today capable of creating new institutions as powerful as those established by the reformers of the 16th century? Or are state-controlled schools capable of mounting a counter-reformation more effective than the one mounted by the 17th-century papacy? Finding the answer to these questions may take a century, if not a millennium. Health Care Joseph Newhouse John D. MacArthur Professor of Health Policy and Management The achievements in health and medical care over the course of the millennium — and especially during the past century — have been remarkable. The most basic measure of health is life expectancy: to what age can a person expect to live? Life expectancy at birth has more than doubled during the millennium, with most of this gain coming in the 20th century, as the accompanying chart shows. Part of the gain in life expectancy came from better nutrition and better sanitation that came with rising incomes. Kilocalories available for work, for example, rose by a factor of five in France between 1700 and 1975 and more than doubled in England and Wales during the same period. Chronic malnutrition was nearly universal three centuries ago; today the United States has an epidemic of obesity. Part of the gain in the 20th century came from improvements in medical care. In particular, the development of vaccines, antibiotics, and recent pharmaceutical and other clinical advances have played a role in not only extending life but also improving its quality. The sharp gain in the 20th century in life expectancy is consistent with Professor Lawrence Henderson's remark, made early in the century, that it was not until 1910 or so that a random patient with a random disease consulting a random doctor stood better than a 50-50 chance of being helped. As an example of how primitive medical treatment was three centuries ago, consider the following description of the medical treatment of King Charles II of England in 1685, when he fell unconscious while shaving in his bedroom: "The following treatment was employed by the royal physicians. A pint of blood was extracted from his right arm; then eight ounces from the left shoulder; next an emetic, two physics, and an enema consisting of 15 substances. Then his head was shaved and a blister raised on the scalp. To purge the brain a sneezing powder was given; then cowslip powder to strengthen it. Meanwhile more emetics, soothing drinks, and more bleeding; also a plaster of pitch and pigeon dung applied to the royal feet. Not to leave anything undone, the following substances were taken internally: melon seeds, manna, slippery elm, black cherry water, extract of lily of the valley, peony, lavender, pearls dissolved in vinegar, gentian root, nutmeg, and finally 40 drops of extract of human skull. As a last resort, bezoar stone was employed. But the royal patient died." (MacKinney, as quoted in Somers and Somers, 1961). Clearly if this was the treatment of kings, medical care for the population 300 years ago did little to prolong or improve the quality of life. In addition to the advances in human health, the last century has seen the development of public and private health insurance (or public provision) throughout the developed world, and in recent years in middle-income countries as well. The spread of insurance has prevented financial devastation from illness of many families worldwide and has obviously become more important as the cost of medical care has risen, a phenomenon of the latter half of the 20th century. Women's Health Cheryl L. Dorsey MPP '92 Doctoral Student, University of Pennsylvania; The Family Van, Founding Director Looking back over the past century, it is clear that women have made significant strides in terms of their health status. A woman's life expectancy increased from 48.3 years in 1900, to 79 years in 1996. A baby girl born today can expect to be active and reasonably vigorous well into her 80s and even beyond. And she will be taller too. While the average height for women was 5'3" in 1921, it rose to 5'41/2" in 1997, in part, due to much improved nutrition. In fact, by 2050 the average female height will be 5'7". In addition, women continue to fill the ranks of medical professionals. While only 14 percent of first-year medical students were women in 1971-72, that percentage increased to 43 percent in 1995-96. Such progress in women's health has paralleled and stems from the successes we've achieved in other realms — from the political and economic to the social. Some of the clearest advances have occurred in women's health policy. Over the years, women had been excluded from major studies on treatable and preventable diseases affecting them. For example, a major National Institutes of Health (NIH) study of health and fitness purposefully excluded women on the premise that men were the norm. Even a clinical trial of estrogen administered after heart attacks was conducted only in men. After sustained criticism for its lack of research on women, however, in 1991, NIH designed the Women's Health Initiative — now the largest clinical study ever undertaken. The dizzying improvements in technology that have fueled the economy and continue to restructure society will have a similar impact on women's health issues well into the next century and beyond. Nowhere will the significance of high-tech medical advances be more on display than in the area of assisted reproduction. Infertility continues to affect more and more American women, due in part to delayed childbearing and the aging of the baby boom generation. Millions of women have sought treatment for infertility since the world's first "test-tube" baby was born in 1978. Now, techniques such as cytoplasmic and blastocyst transfer and improvement in current procedures such as embryo freezing and intracytoplasic sperm injection promise new hope for infertile couples. No longer the stuff of sci-fi novels, these medical developments will unfold, no doubt, at a rapid rate, raising both expectations and ethical considerations for years to come. Russia Graham T. Allison Douglas Dillon Professor of Government As we move not just to a new century, but also to the third millennium, Russia stands at the threshold of an authentically millennial event. On the current schedule, in July 2000, Russian citizens will elect a new president, who will succeed President Yeltsin in the first democratic, law-governed transfer of power in its thousand-year history. History has not been kind to Russians in their governments or governors. As Prime Minister Primakov said to members of the Russian parliament last April, (just before he was unceremoniously dismissed by President Yeltsin: "Your lives will be bad, but not long." Hobbes's characterization of life as "nasty, brutish, and short" has been the fact for centuries of Russians. Today's Russia traces its roots back to Kievan Russia on the eve of the last millennium. In 988, Vladimir, the Prince of Kiev, adopted Christianity following his marriage to a sister of the Emperor of Byzantium. After Vladimir's death, fragmented principalities were overrun by the Mongols in the 13th century and successively by other powerful groups in the vicinity (Teutonic knights, Lithuanians, Poles, and Swedes) until Peter the Great finally and definitively crushed the armies of Sweden at the Battle of Poltava in 1704. Consolidation of the Russian Empire proved a lengthy and often bloody process, that nonetheless expanded over three centuries to the west, south, and east — over thousands of miles of steppe toward the Baltic, Black, and Caspian Seas, and the Pacific Ocean. The process was replete with the overthrow of dynasties and rulers, encouragement of revolts and social unrest, subjugation of the diverse non-Slavic peoples of the borderlands, ruthless suppression of the Slavic peasantry, and brutal annexation of territory from neighboring states. Ambitious Tsars and Tsarinas extracted both blood and treasure from subject populations, at home and abroad, for ventures of their choosing. The Bolshevik coup in 1917 thrust Russia into its Soviet gulag. It proved to be an "evil empire," as President Reagan rightly named it. Stalin killed more Russians than did Hitler's Nazi soldiers in World War II. In 1986, Mikhail Gorbachev became head of the Soviet Union. Recognizing that the Communist system had reached a final phase of stagnation, Gorbachev sought to revive Communist socialism with his calls for perestroika and democratization. But by removing the existential fear that was, as one of Gorbachev's advisers later observed, the "backbone of the Soviet system," Gorbachev unwittingly unleashed events in Eastern Europe that swept away the Berlin Wall; then the Warsaw Pact; and ultimately the Soviet Union itself. The result: an unparalleled expansion of both freedom and absence of authority for individuals across the former Soviet Union, and indeed Russia itself. In the fall of 1991, after the failed coup of August, Boris Yeltsin declared independence for a new democratic Russia. He launched an historic effort to transform the Russian state and society to democracy and the market economy. As with Gorbachev's earlier initiative, he attempted both marketization and democratization simultaneously. With no realistic concept of how these transformations would be effected, limited interest in the hard work of day-to-day governance, and a penchant for divided, incompetent, and often corrupt governments, Yeltsin succeeded primarily in holding on to power. To his (and the Russian people's) credit, during his reign, Russians of all stripes, Communists and democratics alike, came to accept the "democratic presumption." By "democratic presumption" I mean the belief that the best way to answer the question of who should govern within a state is to hold an open, competitive election. Now in the final year of the century, Russia finds itself in a critical "year of elections." According to the Constitution, and to current plans, Russians will vote for a new Duma in December 1999, and a new president in July 2000. If Yeltsin presides over free democratic elections and then transfers power to a democratically elected successor, he will deserve to be remembered as the "founding father of Russian democracy." Americans' stake in Russia's passing this test go beyond the advantages of democracy itself. Of course, in the long run, a democratic Russia is likely to be more peaceful and a better partner for the West. But in the immediate future, as the past several years have shown, Yeltsin's time has passed. Whatever interest he had in governing has been overshadowed by the corruption of power. A new, democratically elected government of Russia, with a renewed commitment to free marketization and democratization, will offer new hope for something Russia has never had: namely, a benign government of minimum competence. Such a government would be competent enough to advance Russia's real interests, which, happily, coincide with the real interests of the West. Families Julie Boatright Wilson Harry S. Kahn Lecturer in Social Policy The major change in family life over the last millennium has been in the evolution of our thinking about children. Touring an art gallery illustrates this change. For the first several hundred years of this millennium, children were seldom pictured. When they did appear, they were depicted as miniature adults, reflecting the prevailing view that once a child reached the age of five or so and no longer needed constant care, he or she entered the world of adults. Children were not unloved, but their low survival rate discouraged an emotional attachment to infants on the part of adults. And apprenticeships, the primary route to adult employment, discouraged the development of strong parent-child bonds. By the 17th century, the concept of a longer childhood was emerging. Although the survival rate of children was still low, the educated classes of Europe began to take greater intellectual interest in children, arguing that they were both innocents in need of protection and flawed or weak beings in need of training for adulthood. Reflecting this shift, the art of this period begins to depict children alone or at the center of family portraits, often wearing clothing distinct from that of adults. At the time, we see a greater recognition of the family's responsibility for the moral and spiritual education of children and the emergence of educational institutions to convey other lessons. By the mid-19th century, middle-class children in the United States under 14 had lost their economic utility. And by the 1930s, compulsory education and child labor laws removed working-class children from the labor force as well. As historian Viviana Zelizer once noted, we observe during this period the transformation of the economic and sentimental value of children and track the emergence of the "economically 'worthless' but emotionally 'priceless' child."1 Later, the extended period of adolescence emerged. Yet, during this period of shifting perspectives, very little was known about how children develop intellectually or emotionally. In the last half of the 19th century, we have made enormous leaps in our understanding of child development. And in the last several years, brain research has brought us even further, leading us to understand, among other things, that the quality of care a child receives in the early years has not only emotional and intellectual, but also physiological consequences. What will the next millennium bring? Certainly it will bring continued growth in our understanding of how children grow and develop and what they need to mature into capable, caring adults. What will families be like? That is difficult to guess, though we can make some assumptions. Despite progress in cloning and fertilization, almost all children are likely to be conceived and born in the traditional way. Sex is just too much fun. Two-adult households, with relationships to extended families, are likely to survive because raising children is hard work. It will continue to be harder on average for lone parents to provide the emotional, financial, and other resources that two parents of whatever sex can provide. The real question is, as we learn more about what children need, will we have the political will to act on that knowledge. 1 As quoted in Michael Katz, In the Shadow of the Poorhouse. Basic Books: New York, 1986, p. 116. American Society Robert D. Putnam Stanfield Professor of International Peace; Director, The Saguaro Seminar: Civic Engagement in America In a number of deep respects, the challenges facing American society at the end of the 19th century foreshadowed those that we face in our own time. Almost exactly a century ago, America had also just experienced a period of dramatic technological, economic, and social change that rendered obsolete a significant stock of social capital. In the three or four decades after the Civil War, the Industrial Revolution, urbanization, and massive waves of immigration transformed American communities. Millions of Americans left family and friends behind on the farm, when they moved to Chicago or Milwaukee or Pittsburgh, and millions more left community institutions behind in a Polish shtetl or an Italian village, when they moved to the Lower East Side or the North End. Americans at the end of the 19th century were divided by class, ethnicity, and race, much as we are today, although today's dividing lines differ in detail from those of a century ago (as Asians and Hispanics, for example, have replaced Jews and Italians as targets of discrimination). Even more evocative of our own social dilemmas were debates about the effects of the transportation and communications revolutions on traditional community bonds. The railroad and rural-free delivery and mail-order firms, and (somewhat later) the automobile and chain stores disrupted local commerce and threatened place-based social connections. Sears & Roebuck, Montgomery Ward, the A&P, and Woolworth's were the counterparts to today's WalMart and Amazon.com. While reactionary romantics mused about a return to a smaller, simpler, pastoral age, Progressives were too practical to be attracted by that appeal. They admired the virtues of the past but understood that we could not go back. The Industrial Age, despite its defects, had made possible a material prosperity that was an essential precondition for civic progress. The issue was not "modernity, yes or no?" but rather "how to reform our institutions and adapt our habits in this new world to secure the enduring values of our tradition?" One striking feature of the revitalization of civic life in America in the last years of the 19th century was a veritable "boom" in association building. Social clubs were not new to American life, but community histories regularly note their proliferation in this period. A so-called "club movement" swept across the land in the late 19th century, emphasizing self-help and amateurism. New handbooks were published on "how to establish" a boys' club or a women's club. College fraternities and sororities expanded rapidly in the 1880s and 1890s. Looking back from the doorstep of the 21st century, it is hard to imagine a time without Boy Scouts, but a century ago it must have seemed fanciful that the 20th century equivalent of Tom Sawyer's gang on the Mississippi sandbar would involve beanies, merit badges, and the Scout's oath. Nevertheless, institutions like the Boy Scouts provided a new and successful forum for youthful community building. So, too, some solutions to today's civic deficit may seem initially preposterous, but we should be wary of straining our civic inventiveness through conventional filters. The specific reforms of the Progressive Era are no longer appropriate for our time, but the practical, enthusiastic idealism of that era — and its achievements — should inspire us. Our challenge now is to reinvent the 21st century equivalent of the Boy Scouts or the settlement house or the playground or Hadassah. What we must create may well look nothing like the institutions Progressives invented a century ago, just as their inventions were not carbon copies of the earlier, small-town folkways whose passing they mourned. We need to be as ready to experiment as the Progressives were. Willingness to err — and then correct our aim — is the price of success in social reform. The above piece is an excerpt from Bowling Alone: Decline and Renewal of the American Community by Robert D. Putnam, forthcoming in May 2000, from Simon and Schuster. Journalism Marvin Kalb Lecturer in Public Policy; Executive Director, Shorenstein Center, Washington, DC Office Two hundred years ago, as the 18th century slipped into the 19th, journalism in America was a new and essentially partisan activity. Congress financed the one newspaper of record; the others were financed by politicians and parties, and they rarely wandered off the official reservation, except when, on instruction, they ripped into an opposition politician. Thomas Jefferson felt that editorial sting, as did Andrew Jackson 25 years later. All this might have seemed quite odd, since the Constitution had spoken proudly of a free press, performing the role of a watchdog on the excesses of all official power, fearlessly criticizing both sides of any political argument. In this spirit, James Madison wrote: "A popular government without popular information...is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy; or perhaps both." That was the laudable theory; the practice was somewhat different, determined as much by the philosophical concept of a free press as by economic and technological factors that shaped the operation of a free press. For example, the "penny press" of the 1830s lowered the price and thus popularized the American newspaper, adding such features as advertisements and gossip. The wireless of the 1840s rapidly spread the news, however it was defined, from state to state. Newspapering became a good business. One hundred years ago, as the 19th century blasted its way into the 20th, a "new journalism" emerged, reflecting the economic vitality and growth of the country itself. A serious press covered "all the news that's fit to print," as the new publisher of The New York Times, Adolph Ochs, stated, but the tabloid press, filled with gossip, sensational and often fabricated stories of murder, and governmental mismanagement, dominated the highly competitive market — and prospered. Soon newsreels and radio added to the zealous pursuit of profit, and journalism became not only a good business but also a booming business. The depression of the 1930s, the horrors of World War II, the dropping of nuclear bombs on Japan, and the tensions of the Cold War imposed a degree of restraint and responsibility on the press. In time "press" seemed too confining a word to describe the new "media" world of global corporations owning vast empires of information, based on television, cable, computers, and, finally, the Internet. The "new news" utterly transformed the ethics and culture of press and politics; and when the Cold War collapsed in the early 1990s, all restraints seemed suddenly to be lifted and journalists returned to the frivolous mores of earlier times, spending endless hours of TV time and devoting endless columns of newspaper print to O.J. Simpson's trial, Princess Diana's death, and President Bill Clinton's private life. Tabloids triumphed over more traditional forms of journalism. There seemed no bottom to the depths to which modern journalism could plunge in its pursuit of profit, ratings, buzz, and glitz at the very same time, ironically, that its awesome technological reach provided new and exciting vistas and information to people who normally would have been cut off from these opportunities. Now, as the 21st century beckons, the free press of America faces perhaps its greatest challenge since Madison's time — how to survive the age of mega-media conglomerates while retaining its historical commitment to standards of objectivity, detachment, and responsible criticism. It is clearly going to be very difficult. TV journalists have become celebrities, often more famous than the people they cover. A certain arrogance has settled on the craft, leading to a growing, perceptible disconnect between the journalist and the public. People and popular causes are increasingly defined by their degrees of skepticism and cynicism towards governmental authority. In 1960, considerably more than 70 percent of the American people "trusted" their government; now the percentage has dropped to 29 percent. Conglomerates have a greater devotion to the bottom line than to the common good. Juries are increasingly coming in with decisions that are critical of press practices. At this time, there is little evidence to suggest that these trends will turn around and better times will surface on the near horizon. Congress may be tempted to legislate press constraints, which would be tragic and probably unconstitutional. But none of this gloom is carved into stone. People make their own history. They must demand a better press performance. They may get it. Feminism Jane Mansbridge Adams Professor of Political Leadership and Democratic Values The "second wave" of feminism, which took off in the United States in l967, had to happen. The female labor force had been slowly creeping up from 25 percent in 1930, to 35 percent in l960, to almost 45 percent in l970. (By now it is 60 percent.) Attitudes were changing too, but only slowly. In l968, only about half of the American population said "yes" to the survey question, "If your party nominated a woman for president, would you vote for her if she were qualified for the job?" This was a lot better than the first time the question was asked, in l935, when 34 percent said "yes," but it was not a sea change. By the l960s, more women were finding that the marriages they expected to last for life were ending in divorce. Women were getting more formal education. But when middle-class women graduated from college, they found that some public colleges, universities, and professional schools still had legal quotas restricting the number of women admitted, some businesses still had dual pay schedules for men and women performing the same job, and most newspapers advertised jobs in two sections, male and female. Even at Harvard, women were barred from Lamont Library. The women's movement acted like an earthquake, releasing tectonic plates that had been building up strain. Demonstrations, consciousness-raising groups, and new newspapers, magazines, and books began a process of thinking in new ways. The campaign for the ERA took the issues into middle America. The issues reached across class and race. In l972, 67 percent of black women and 35 percent of white women told the Harris survey that they supported women's liberation groups. The world has not been the same since. In the United States, institutions, laws, and patterns of everyday interaction began to change to meet the demands of so many women. By l994, 89 percent of all Americans said they would vote for a woman president. Men began to accept responsibility for child care. In Europe, patterns changed differently depending on the country. The Scandinavian countries adapted quickly to the many economic and social demands for equality that fit into the framework of the welfare state. Today those countries have the best arrangements for parents who want to leave the workforce to take care of their young children, though they lag behind in concern for sexual harassment. The French have some of the best daycare in the world, as the political left and right came together in their concerns. In other parts of the world, women are either demanding changes or subtly bringing about changes without making overt demands, in areas that range from setting up battered women's shelters to arranging micro-credit. Ever since hunter-gatherer societies first evolved on this planet — perhaps a hundred thousand years ago — women have been excluded, or almost excluded, from decisions that we would now call "political." Major religions and philosophies have assigned women a lesser role in religious practice, collective decisions, and sometimes even in the human race itself. In the next millennium, I am fairly sure that this inequality — which until now has lasted as long as the history of humanity — will come to an end. And not a minute too soon. Global Economy Jeffrey D. Sachs Galen L. Stone Professor of International Trade; Director, Center for International Development In our Gilded Age, the poorest of the poor are nearly invisible. Seven hundred million people live in the 42 so-called Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs), where a combination of extreme poverty and financial insolvency mark them for a special kind of despair and economic isolation. They escape our notice almost entirely, unless war or an exotic disease breaks out. The situation in these poor countries has become intolerable, especially at a time when the rich countries are bursting with new wealth and scientific prowess. Looking at basic nutrition levels, we see evidence of outright declines in caloric consumption in 10 HIPC countries in recent years. In nine Sub-Saharan African countries, average caloric intake does not even reach 2,000 calories per day. During this same period, the average resident in the wealthy G-7 countries (Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, and the United States) consumed roughly 3,300 calories per day. Thirteen Sub-Saharan HIPC countries showed declines in life expectancy during the 1990s, partly due to the AIDS epidemic, which is ravaging the continent. The time has arrived for a fundamental re-thinking of the strategy for cooperation between rich and poor, with the avowed aim of helping the poorest of the poor back on to their own feet to join the race for human betterment. Four steps could change the shape of our global community. First, the rich and poor need to learn to talk together. The starting point is for the world's democracies, rich and poor, to get together in a quest for common action. Once again, the rich G-8 (including Russia) met in 1999 without the presence of the developing world. This kind of rich-country summit should be the last. Next year should bring together both rich and poor. A G-16 for the new millennium should include old and new democracies such as Brazil, India, Korea, Nigeria, Poland, and South Africa. Second, rich and poor countries should direct their urgent attention to the mobilization of science and technology for poor-country problems. The rich countries should understand that the International Monetary Fund and World Bank are by themselves unequipped for that challenge. The specialized UN agencies have a great role to play, especially if they also act as a bridge between the activities of advanced-country and developing-country scientific centers. They will be able to play that role, however, only after the United States pays its debts to the United Nations and only if the unthinking American hostility to the United Nations system is ended. In addition, we will need new and creative institutional alliances. A Millennium Vaccine Fund, which guarantees future markets for malaria, tuberculosis, and AIDS vaccines, would be the right place to start. The vaccine-fund approach is administratively straightforward, desperately needed, and within our technological reach. Similar efforts to merge public and private science activities will be needed in agricultural biotechnology as well. Third, just as knowledge is becoming the undisputed centerpiece of global prosperity (and lack of it, the core of human impoverishment), the global regime on intellectual property rights requires a new look. The United States prevailed upon the world to toughen patent codes and cut down on intellectual piracy. But now transnational corporations and rich-country institutions are busy patenting everything from the human genome to rainforest biodiversity. The poor will be ripped off unless some sense and equity is introduced into this runaway process. Moreover, the system of intellectual property rights must balance the need to provide incentives for innovation against the need of poor countries to get the results of innovation. The more general issue of setting global rules for the uses and development of new technologies — especially the controversial biotechnologies — will again require global cooperation, not the strong-arming of the few rich countries. Fourth, and perhaps toughest of all, we need a serious discussion about long-term funding for the international public goods necessary for HIPC countries to break through to prosperity. The rich countries are willing to talk about everything except money: money to develop new malaria, tuberculosis, and AIDS vaccines; money to spur biotechnology research in food-scarce regions; money to help tropical countries adjust to climate changes imposed on them by the richer countries. The World Bank makes mostly loans, and loans to individual countries at that. It does not fund global public goods. America has systematically squeezed the budgets of UN agencies, including such vital ones as the World Health Organization. We will need, in the end, to put real resources in support of our hopes. A global tax on carbon-emitting fossil fuels might be the way to begin. Even a very small tax, less than that which is needed to correct humanity's climate-deforming overuse of fossil fuels, would readily finance a greatly enhanced supply of global public goods. No better time to start than at the beginning of the new millennium. Technology Jean Camp Assistant Professor of Public Policy The Internet is frequently compared to the printing press, especially at the start of the new millennium. The printing press changed the use and storage of a critical input: information. Over the long term, the printing press enabled innovation, quantification, and current information technology. The digital information revolution, enabled by the movabletype analog information revolution, will once again change who we are, who we think we are, and how we think about who we are. Yet the importance of the discovery of information technology is often overlooked — considered an elite, first-world phenomenon. Electronic communities are sometimes framed as the playgrounds for the leisure of those in the first world. Yet, simultaneously, development programs and domestic governments focus on building traditional community centers (e.g., health care, education, postal centers). This contrasts with digitally connected community centers that offer instant connectivity across the globe, with stores and libraries that offer everything but running water. Health information, agriculture information, and economic information will reduce wasteful practices. Does this matter? Imagine if every parent on the planet knew how to prevent infant death from dehydration. Certainly the claims of world health are even more extreme than claims of world peace, but the point is, even in the absence of wealth, information matters. The technology is becoming affordable for every community. In Japan, schoolgirls buy "Pipi," a $30, pretty, little, wireless, and Internet-ready cellular device. No doubt, such an explosion in cheap technology will lead to the same concerns as cheap reading materials, including the popularity of digital Comstockery. The connectivity of the rich, first-world children and the poor children will change their communities and their concepts of themselves. It will change the boundaries of communities and the expectation of personal boundaries. When the communities are connected at the center, where is the boundary? The observation that half the people in the world have never made a phone call is often presented as argument that connectivity is broadly irrelevant. Strangely enough, the obvious print corollary, that illiteracy exists on a vast global scale, is not understood to imply that the written word is not relevant. Similarly, the lack of empowerment over the digital word does not imply that the electronic word is irrelevant. Hundreds of years after the arrival of the printing press, the concept of global literacy, with children belonging in school, is a global ideal. The importance of the written word is accepted. While in many places the written word may seem a tragic, ironic joke, in fact, the acceptance of the importance of the written word can extend the power of the word to the darkest corners. Amnesty International sends only words to stop the torturer from further harming the victim. The world accepts that the written word defines the world. The digital world is frightening because it will redefine the world. It is not the access to digital communities that is the true misspent luxury of the first world, but rather the time spent to decide that the digital word matters to the unwired. Because of the increase in efficiency inherent to the information technologies, reaction time is decreased. There are not centuries to squander.