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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
The last yearly meeting of the Club of Rome, held October 14–17, 1974, in Berlin, featured the public presentation of the “Second Report to the Club of Rome” drafted by Mihajlo Mesarovic and Eduard Pestel.
That report, Mankind at the Turning Point, inaugurates a new stage in research done under the auspices of the Club of Rome and it provides, in my opinion, a good basis for thinking about the evolution of the international system which frames the destiny of our nation-states.
1 Mesarovic, Mihajlo D. and Pestel, Eduard, Mankind at the Turning Point, The Second Report to the Club of Rome (New York, 1974)Google Scholar.
2 North America; Western Europe; Japan, Australia and the other market economies; the Soviet Union and the European socialist countries; Latin America; North Africa and the Middle East; Sub-Saharan Africa; South and Southeast Asia; China.
3 Cf. in this regard the reflections of Picht, Georg, “Uberlegungen über die Zukunft der Menschheit.” Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Club of Rome, Berlin (10 14–17, 1974)Google Scholar. While it may be true that the “regions” conceived as they are by the authors of the report do not constitute political entities, it is nonetheless evident that through regional agreements by economic communities, leagues, bloc, groups of states, defined or undefined, common aspirations if not common wills are expressed. These must be considered when elaborating political decisions at the global level. There are regional decisionmaking levels as well. By trying to identify some of these, Mesarovic and Pestel simply wanted to deal with needs other than those of the world taken as a whole. Their model should be seen for what it claims to be: an instrument with which to deal with political reality. The remarks made by Georg Picht are very moderate. Matzke, Otto, in an article published by the Neue Zürcher Zeitung on 11 16–17, 1974, p. 37Google Scholar, indulged in a polemic which seems to me to be superficial and even harmful. It is always possible to find objects for irony and criticism in models this general. And when Otto Matzke implies that the authors see an “automatic” improvement in the supplies of poor countries through the application of new food policies in rich countries, he goes too far.
4 Mankind at the Turning Point, pp. 156–157.
5 The mimeographed text of Mrs. Barbara Ward's Morrison Lecture given at Chicago, May 12, 1974, was distributed at the Berlin meeting of the Club of Rome.
6 Brown, Lester R., The World Food Prospect. Memorandum, 15 pp.Google Scholar See also Brown, Lester R., By Bread Alone, published in collaboration with Erik Eckholm, P. for the Overseas Development Council, Praeger, New York, 1 vol., 272 pp.Google Scholar, and the declarations of the “Rome Forum,” a group which met during the World Food Conference, summed up by the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, November 6, 1974.
7 Urquidi, Victor L., The World Population Situation in the Light of the Bucharest Conference (1974). Mimeographed memorandum, 8 ppGoogle Scholar.
8 Linnemann, Hans, Problèemes du doublement de la population: problèeme alimentaire. Mimeographed memorandum, 15 ppGoogle Scholar.
9 Interim Report, September 1974, presented at the annual meeting of IFIAS at Aspen. Mimeographed, 34 + 8 pp.
10 Tinbergen, Jan, Dèeveloppement: oùu en est le dèebat? Mimeographed memorandum, 18 ppGoogle Scholar.
11 Latin American World Model (A Summary), Fundacion Bariloche (Buenos Aires, 1974)Google Scholar.
12 The same spirit is to be found in the Cocoyoc Declaration which concluded a colloquium held in Cocoyoc (Mexico) at the beginning of October, 1974, and which Maurice Strong presented in Berlin.