US Becomes "Part" of World

In the aftermath of September 11, the United States will have to abandon its "go-it-alone" Fortress America policies, according to PR executive Robert Dilenschneider. In his annual trends report, Dilenschneider said that Americans "can no longer avoid with impunity understanding other cultures or their mores; or religious beliefs heretofore foreign to them; or political structures and personalities that only occasionally appear on the 'foreign news' page of the paper." Dilenschneider also predicts that opposition to economic globalization will intensify, with the global economy in a downward spiral following unprecedented concentration of wealth in elite hands. "In 1900, the ratio of wealth dividing the world's most privileged and its poorest stood at 9 to 1. In 2001, it has risen to 72 to 1. ... During the 1990 to 2000 period, top U.S. corporate executives' pay rose 571%, while the average worker's pay climbed 37%. CEO pay in the U.S. now stands at 531 times the pay of the average worker. The new global economy is capital- and technology-intensive. Thus, labor is at a disadvantage. ... All this produces a social backlash that is contributing to the anti-globalization movement, and will become increasingly serious."