Equality and Diversity in the Information Age

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Thomas Schauer / Franz Josef Radermacher

available in English, German, Farsi, French, Portuguese, Russian

770 million humans on Earth are undernourished and 11 million children die from malnutrition every year. 1,000 million people are overweight and 300 million are clinically obese.

The three wealthiest person's cululative fortune equals the gross national income of the 125 million inhabitants in the three states Congo, Burundi and Ethiopia for a period of 10 years.

Now we enter the Information Age. Will the new technologies contribute to a new equilibrium or will they increase the gaps by making the rich (and only them) also information-rich?

Scenarios outline possible futures - some with a balanced way and some with growing inequality and unrest.

ISBN 3-89559-050-9 (English)
ISBN 3-89559-049-5 (German)
ISBN 3-89559-054-1 (Farsi)
ISBN 3-89559-051-7 (French)
ISBN 3-89559-052-5 (Portuguese)
ISBN 3-89559-053-3 (Russian)

The publication is available as a paper copy upon request. Please send us a mail to europaclubofrome.at with your coordinates if you were interested to receive it.


Contents

1. The Status Concerning Equality

   1.1 Some Striking Facts
   1.2 Poverty Thresholds
   1.3 Income Distribution Measures
   1.4 The Interpretation of Empirical Data
   1.5 The Mechanisms Which Influence Distribution
   1.6 Should There Be an Upper Limit to Equality?

2. Equality in the Information Age

   2.1 Internet, Wealth and Hidden Agendas
   2.2 Internet Access and Equality
   2.3 The Global Information Society - A Fairy Tale?

3. Information Technology and Cultural Diversity

   3.1 Cultural Diversity - The State of the Art
   3.2 The Loss of Local Cultures
   3.3 The Flourishing of Global Cultures
   3.4 Preserving Diversity Online - Limits of Storage
   3.5 Diasporas Go Online
   3.6 Diversity of Political Opinions Online
   3.7 Technology Fails to Ban Harmful Content
   3.8 International Declarations and Illegal Content

4. Information Technology and Biological Diversity

   4.1 Threatened Ecosystems
   4.2 Threatened Species
   4.3 Threatened Varieties
   4.4 The Impact of the New Media

5. The Balanced Way - a Vision

   5.1 How the Ideas Evolved
   5.2 The Importance of Frameworks
   5.3 What is Wrong Today in Global Governance
   5.4 The Four Futures
   5.5 IT and the Four Futures
   5.6 The Consequences of Resource-dictatorship
   5.7 The Eco-Social Market Economy as an Alternative
   5.8 The Role of Resource Productivity
   5.9 A Balanced Way
   5.10 Western Lifestyle and the Lines of Conflict
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