Abstract
In the kind of tumultuous, strife-torn, and stressful world we are living in, we need to ask the questions: “Is our civilization moving in the right direction? What makes a civilization great?” Greed for power and greed for money, unless offset by a shared conception of civilizational excellence, often degenerate into widespread corruption, fraud, and violence. In developing countries like India, the challenge is to design a civilization that uses the creativity and enterprise of the market economy, the freedom of choice of democracy, and the altruism of the developmental state – to reverse degeneration and foster social, economic, and ethical regeneration. In this essay, I propose that advance towards civilizational greatness occurs when there is widespread humaneness, constructive creativity, and performance excellence. I have also identified several entry points onto the path of civilizational greatness. Though not a great power, Sweden is discussed as a major example of civilizational greatness. I show how Sweden has made notable progress towards civilizational greatness by harnessing many of the entry points.
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Recommended Citation
Khandwalla, Pradip N.
(2017)
"Globalization Tumult and Civilizational Greatness,"
Markets, Globalization & Development Review:
Vol. 2:
No.
3, Article 5.
DOI: 10.23860/MGDR-2017-02-03-05
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/mgdr/vol2/iss3/5
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Author Bio
Pradip Khandwalla, born in India, has an MBA from Wharton School and a Ph.D. in Industrial Administration and Organization Theory from Carnegie-Mellon University, in USA. He taught at McGill University, Montreal, Canada, and returned to India in 1975 to join Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA) as faculty. At IIMA he held the L&T Chair in Organizational Behaviour and later served as Director of IIMA. His teaching and research interests have been in organization theory and the design and functioning of organizations; creativity and the management and social applications of creativity; effective public administration and democratic governance; and the design of civilizational excellence. For his work he has received three lifetime achievement awards.