Technological determinism

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_determinism

 

Technological determinism is a reductionist theory in assuming that a society's technology progresses by following its own internal logic of efficiency, while determining the development of the social structure and cultural values. The term is believed to have originated from Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929), an American sociologist and economist. The most radical technological determinist in the United States in the 20th century was most likely Clarence Ayres who was a follower of Thorstein Veblen as well as John Dewey. William Ogburn was also known for his radical technological determinism and his theory on cultural lag.

Origin

The term is believed to have been coined by Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929), an American social scientist. Veblen's contemporary, popular historian Charles A. Beard, provided this apt determinist image, "Technology marches in seven-league boots from one ruthless, revolutionary conquest to another, tearing down old factories and industries, flinging up new processes with terrifying rapidity." As to the meaning, it is described as the ascription of "powers" to machines that they do not have. Veblen, for instance, asserted that "the machine throws out anthropomorphic habits of thought." There is also the case of Karl Marx who expected that the construction of the railway in India would dissolve the caste system. The general idea, according to Robert Heilbroner, is that technology, by way of its machines, can cause historical change by changing the material conditions of human existence.

One of the most radical technological determinists was Clarence Ayres, who was a follower of Veblen's theory in the 20th century. Ayres is best known for developing economic philosophies, but he also worked closely with Veblen who coined the technological determinism theory. He often talked about the struggle between technology and ceremonial structure. One of his most notable theories involved the concept of "technological drag" where he explains technology as a self-generating process and institutions as ceremonial and this notion creates a technological over-determinism in the process.

Explanation

Technological determinism seeks to show technical developments, media, or technology as a whole, as the key mover in history and social change. It is a theory subscribed to by "hyperglobalists" who claim that as a consequence of the wide availability of technology, accelerated globalization is inevitable. Therefore, technological development and innovation become the principal motor of social, economic or political change.

Strict adherents to technological determinism do not believe the influence of technology differs based on how much a technology is or can be used. Instead of considering technology as part of a larger spectrum of human activity, technological determinism sees technology as the basis for all human activity.

Technological determinism has been summarized as 'The belief in technology as a key governing force in society ...' (Merritt Roe Smith). 'The idea that technological development determines social change ...' (Bruce Bimber). It changes the way people think and how they interact with others and can be described as '...a three-word logical proposition: "Technology determines history"' (Rosalind H. Williams) . It is, '... the belief that social progress is driven by technological innovation, which in turn follows an "inevitable" course.' This 'idea of progress' or 'doctrine of progress' is centralized around the idea that social problems can be solved by technological advancement, and this is the way that society moves forward. Technological determinists believe that "'You can't stop progress', implying that we are unable to control technology" (Lelia Green). This suggests that we are somewhat powerless and society allows technology to drive social changes because "societies fail to be aware of the alternatives to the values embedded in it [technology]" (Merritt Roe Smith).

Technological determinism has been defined as an approach that identifies technology, or technological advances, as the central causal element in processes of social change. As technology is stabilized, its design tends to dictate users' behaviors, consequently stating that "technological progress equals social progress." Key notions of this theory are separated into two parts, with the first being that the development of the technology itself may also be separate from social and political factors, arising from "the ways of inventors, engineers, and designers following an internal, technical logic that has nothing to do with social relationships". The second is that as technology is stabilized, its design tends to dictate users' behaviors, consequently resulting in social change.

As technology changes, the ways in which it is utilized and incorporated into the daily lives of individuals within a culture consequently affect the ways of living, highlighting how technology ultimately determines societal growth through its influence on relations and ways of living within a culture. To illustrate, "the invention of the wheel revolutionized human mobility, allowing humans to travel greater distances and carry greater loads with them". This technological advancement also leads to interactions between different cultural groups, advanced trade, etc, and thus impacts the size and relations both within and between different networks. Other examples include the invention of language, expanding modes of communication between individuals, the introduction of bookkeeping and written documentation, impacting the circulation of knowledge, and having streamlined effects on the socioeconomic and political systems as a whole. As Dusek (2006) notes, "culture and society cannot affect the direction of technology…[and] as technology develops and changes, the institutions in the rest of society change, as does the art and religion of a society." Thus, technological determinism dictates that technological advances and social relations are inevitably tied, with the change of either affecting the other by consequence of normalization.

This stance however ignores the social and cultural circumstances in which the technology was developed. Sociologist Claude Fischer (1992) characterized the most prominent forms of technological determinism as "billiard ball" approaches, in which technology is seen as an external force introduced into a social situation, producing a series of ricochet effects.

Rather than acknowledging that a society or culture interacts with and even shapes the technologies that are used, a technological determinist view holds that "the uses made of technology are largely determined by the structure of the technology itself, that is, that its functions follow from its form" (Neil Postman). However, this is not the sole view of TD following Smith and Marx's (1998) notion of "hard" determinism, which states that once a technology is introduced into a culture what follows is the inevitable development of that technology. In this view, the role of "agency (the power to affect change) is imputed on the technology itself, or some of its intrinsic attributes; thus the invention of technology leads to a situation of inescapable necessity."

The other view follows what Smith and Marx (1998) dictate as "soft" determinism, where the development of technology is also dependent on social context, affecting how it is adopted into a culture, "and, if the technology is adopted, the social context will have important effects on how the technology is used and thus on its ultimate impact".

For example, we could examine the spread of mass-produced knowledge through the role of the printing press in the Protestant Reformation. Because of the urgency from the protestant side to get the reform off the ground before the church could react, "early Lutheran leaders, led by Luther himself, wrote thousands of anti-papal pamphlets in the Reformation's first decades and these works spread rapidly through reprinting in various print shops throughout central Europe". As such the urgency of the socio-political context to utilize such technology in the beginning of its invention caused its fast adoption and normalization into European culture. We could view its uses in its popularization – for political propaganda purposes – in line with the continued traditions of newspapers in modern times, as well as newly adopted uses for other printed text, adapting to change in a social context such as an emphasis on leisurely activities such as reading. This follows the soft deterministic view because the technological invention – the printing press – was quickly adopted because of the socio-political context, and because of its fast integration into society, has impacted and continues to impact how society operates.

Hard and soft determinism

In examining determinism, hard determinism can be contrasted with soft determinism. A compatibilist says that it is possible for free will and determinism to exist in the world together, while an incompatibilist would say that they can not and there must be one or the other. Those who support determinism can be further divided.

Hard determinists would view technology as developing independent from social concerns. They would say that technology creates a set of powerful forces acting to regulate our social activity and its meaning. According to this view of determinism we organize ourselves to meet the needs of technology and the outcome of this organization is beyond our control or we do not have the freedom to make a choice regarding the outcome (autonomous technology). The 20th century French philosopher and social theorist Jacques Ellul could be said to be a hard determinist and proponent of autonomous technique (technology). In his 1954 work The Technological Society, Ellul essentially posits that technology, by virtue of its power through efficiency, determines which social aspects are best suited for its own development through a process of natural selection. A social system's values, morals, philosophy etc. that are most conducive to the advancement of technology allow that social system to enhance its power and spread at the expense of those social systems whose values, morals, philosophy etc. are less promoting of technology. While geography, climate, and other "natural" factors largely determined the parameters of social conditions for most of human history, technology has recently become the dominant objective factor (largely due to forces unleashed by the industrial revolution) and it has been the principal objective and determining factor.

Soft determinism, as the name suggests, is a more passive view of the way technology interacts with socio-political situations. Soft determinists still subscribe to the fact that technology is the guiding force in our evolution, but would maintain that we have a chance to make decisions regarding the outcomes of a situation. This is not to say that free will exists, but that the possibility for us to roll the dice and see what the outcome is exists. A slightly different variant of soft determinism is the 1922 technology-driven theory of social change proposed by William Fielding Ogburn, in which society must adjust to the consequences of major inventions, but often does so only after a period of cultural lag.

Technology as neutral

Individuals who consider technology as neutral see technology as neither good nor bad and what matters are the ways in which we use technology. An example of a neutral viewpoint is, "guns are neutral and its up to how we use them whether it would be 'good or bad'" (Green, 2001). Mackenzie and Wajcman believe that technology is neutral only if it's never been used before, or if no one knows what it is going to be used for (Green, 2001). In effect, guns would be classified as neutral if and only if society were none the wiser of their existence and functionality (Green, 2001). Obviously, such a society is non-existent and once becoming knowledgeable about technology, the society is drawn into a social progression where nothing is 'neutral about society' (Green). According to Lelia Green, if one believes technology is neutral, one would disregard the cultural and social conditions that technology has produced (Green, 2001). This view is also referred to as technological instrumentalism.

In what is often considered a definitive reflection on the topic, the historian Melvin Kranzberg famously wrote in the first of his six laws of technology: "Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral."

Criticism

Skepticism about technological determinism emerged alongside increased pessimism about techno-science in the mid-20th century, in particular around the use of nuclear energy in the production of nuclear weapons, Nazi human experimentation during World War II, and the problems of economic development in the Third World. As a direct consequence, desire for greater control of the course of development of technology gave rise to disenchantment with the model of technological determinism in academia.

Modern theorists of technology and society no longer consider technological determinism to be a very accurate view of the way in which we interact with technology, even though determinist assumptions and language fairly saturate the writings of many boosters of technology, the business pages of many popular magazines, and much reporting on technology. Instead, research in science and technology studies, social construction of technology and related fields have emphasised more nuanced views that resist easy causal formulations. They emphasise that "The relationship between technology and society cannot be reduced to a simplistic cause-and-effect formula. It is, rather, an 'intertwining'", whereby technology does not determine but "operates, and are operated upon in a complex social field" (Murphie and Potts).

T. Snyder approached the aspect of technological determinism in his concept: 'politics of inevitability'. A concept utilized by politicians in which society is promised the idea that the future will be only more of the present, this concept removes responsibility. This could be applied to free markets, the development of nation states and technological progress.

In his article "Subversive Rationalization: Technology, Power and Democracy with Technology," Andrew Feenberg argues that technological determinism is not a very well founded concept by illustrating that two of the founding theses of determinism are easily questionable and in doing so calls for what he calls democratic rationalization (Feenberg 210–212).

Prominent opposition to technologically determinist thinking has emerged within work on the social construction of technology (SCOT). SCOT research, such as that of Mackenzie and Wajcman (1997) argues that the path of innovation and its social consequences are strongly, if not entirely shaped by society itself through the influence of culture, politics, economic arrangements, regulatory mechanisms and the like. In its strongest form, verging on social determinism, "What matters is not the technology itself, but the social or economic system in which it is embedded" (Langdon Winner).

In his influential but contested (see Woolgar and Cooper, 1999) article "Do Artifacts Have Politics?", Langdon Winner illustrates not a form of determinism but the various sources of the politics of technologies. Those politics can stem from the intentions of the designer and the culture of the society in which a technology emerges or can stem from the technology itself, a "practical necessity" for it to function. For instance, New York City urban planner Robert Moses is purported to have built Long Island's parkway tunnels too low for buses to pass in order to keep minorities away from the island's beaches, an example of externally inscribed politics. On the other hand, an authoritarian command-and-control structure is a practical necessity of a nuclear power plant if radioactive waste is not to fall into the wrong hands. As such, Winner neither succumbs to technological determinism nor social determinism. The source of a technology's politics is determined only by carefully examining its features and history.

Although "The deterministic model of technology is widely propagated in society" (Sarah Miller), it has also been widely questioned by scholars. Lelia Green explains that, "When technology was perceived as being outside society, it made sense to talk about technology as neutral". Yet, this idea fails to take into account that culture is not fixed and society is dynamic. When "Technology is implicated in social processes, there is nothing neutral about society" (Lelia Green). This confirms one of the major problems with "technological determinism and the resulting denial of human responsibility for change. There is a loss of human involvement that shape technology and society" (Sarah Miller).

Another conflicting idea is that of technological somnambulism, a term coined by Winner in his essay "Technology as Forms of Life". Winner wonders whether or not we are simply sleepwalking through our existence with little concern or knowledge as to how we truly interact with technology. In this view, it is still possible for us to wake up and once again take control of the direction in which we are traveling (Winner 104). However, it requires society to adopt Ralph Schroeder's claim that, "users don't just passively consume technology, but actively transform it".

In opposition to technological determinism are those who subscribe to the belief of social determinism and postmodernism. Social determinists believe that social circumstances alone select which technologies are adopted, with the result that no technology can be considered "inevitable" solely on its own merits. Technology and culture are not neutral and when knowledge comes into the equation, technology becomes implicated in social processes. The knowledge of how to create, enhance, and use technology is socially bound knowledge. Postmodernists take another view, suggesting that what is right or wrong is dependent on circumstance. They believe technological change can have implications on the past, present and future. While they believe technological change is influenced by changes in government policy, society and culture, they consider the notion of change to be a paradox, since change is constant.

Media and cultural studies theorist Brian Winston, in response to technological determinism, developed a model for the emergence of new technologies which is centered on the Law of the suppression of radical potential. In two of his books – Technologies of Seeing: Photography, Cinematography and Television (1997) and Media Technology and Society (1998) – Winston applied this model to show how technologies evolve over time, and how their 'invention' is mediated and controlled by society and societal factors which suppress the radical potential of a given technology.

The stirrup

Main article: Great Stirrup Controversy

One continued argument for technological determinism is centered on the stirrup and its impact on the creation of feudalism in Europe in the late 8th century/early 9th century. Lynn White is credited with first drawing this parallel between feudalism and the stirrup in his book Medieval Technology and Social Change, which was published in 1962 and argued that as "it made possible mounted shock combat", the new form of war made the soldier that much more efficient in supporting feudal townships (White, 2). According to White, the superiority of the stirrup in combat was found in the mechanics of the lance charge: "The stirrup made possible- though it did not demand- a vastly more effective mode of attack: now the rider could lay his lance at rest, held between the upper arm and the body, and make at his foe, delivering the blow not with his muscles but with the combined weight of himself and his charging stallion (White, 2)." White draws from a large research base, particularly Heinrich Brunner's "Der Reiterdienst und die Anfänge des Lehnwesens" in substantiating his claim of the emergence of feudalism. In focusing on the evolution of warfare, particularly that of cavalry in connection with Charles Martel's "diversion of a considerable part of the Church's vast military riches...from infantry to cavalry", White draws from Brunner's research and identifies the stirrup as the underlying cause for such a shift in military division and the subsequent emergence of feudalism (White, 4). Under the new brand of warfare garnered from the stirrup, White implicitly argues in favor of technological determinism as the vehicle by which feudalism was created.

Though an accomplished work, White's Medieval Technology and Social Change has since come under heavy scrutiny and condemnation. The most volatile critics of White's argument at the time of its publication, P.H. Sawyer and R.H. Hilton, call the work as a whole "a misleading adventurist cast to old-fashioned platitudes with a chain of obscure and dubious deductions from scanty evidence about the progress of technology (Sawyer and Hilton, 90)." They further condemn his methods and, by association, the validity of technological determinism: "Had Mr. White been prepared to accept the view that the English and Norman methods of fighting were not so very different in the eleventh century, he would have made the weakness of his argument less obvious, but the fundamental failure would remain: the stirrup cannot alone explain the changes it made possible (Sawyer and Hilton, 91)." For Sawyer and Hilton, though the stirrup may be useful in the implementation of feudalism, it cannot be credited for the creation of feudalism alone.

Despite the scathing review of White's claims, the technological determinist aspect of the stirrup is still in debate. Alex Roland, author of "Once More into the Stirrups; Lynne White Jr, Medieval Technology and Social Change", provides an intermediary stance: not necessarily lauding White's claims, but providing a little defense against Sawyer and Hilton's allegations of gross intellectual negligence. Roland views White's focus on technology to be the most relevant and important aspect of Medieval Technology and Social Change rather than the particulars of its execution: "But can these many virtues, can this utility for historians of technology, outweigh the most fundamental standards of the profession? Can historians of technology continue to read and assign a book that is, in the words of a recent critic, "shot through with over-simplification, with a progression of false connexions between cause and effect, and with evidence presented selectively to fit with [White's] own pre-conceived ideas"? The answer, I think, is yes, at least a qualified yes (Roland, 574–575)." Objectively, Roland claims Medieval Technology and Social Change a variable success, at least as "Most of White's argument stands... the rest has sparked useful lines of research (Roland, 584)." This acceptance of technological determinism is ambiguous at best, neither fully supporting the theory at large nor denouncing it, rather placing the construct firmly in the realm of the theoretical. Roland neither views technological determinism as completely dominant over history nor completely absent as well; in accordance with the above criterion of technological determinist structure, would Roland be classified as a "soft determinist".

Notable technological determinists

Thomas L. Friedman, American journalist, columnist and author, admits to being a technological determinist in his book The World Is Flat.

Futurist Raymond Kurzweil's theories about a technological singularity follow a technologically deterministic view of history.

Some interpret Karl Marx as advocating technological determinism, with such statements as "The Handmill gives you society with the feudal lord: the steam-mill, society with the industrial capitalist" (The Poverty of Philosophy, 1847), but others argue that Marx was not a determinist.

Technological determinist Walter J. Ong reviews the societal transition from an oral culture to a written culture in his work Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (1982). He asserts that this particular development is attributable to the use of new technologies of literacy (particularly print and writing,) to communicate thoughts which could previously only be verbalized. He furthers this argument by claiming that writing is purely context dependent as it is a "secondary modelling system" (8). Reliant upon the earlier primary system of spoken language, writing manipulates the potential of language as it depends purely upon the visual sense to communicate the intended information. Furthermore, the rather stagnant technology of literacy distinctly limits the usage and influence of knowledge, it unquestionably effects the evolution of society. In fact, Ong asserts that "more than any other single invention, writing has transformed human consciousness" (Ong 1982: 78).

Media determinism as a form of technological determinism

Media determinism is a form of technological determinism, a philosophical and sociological position which posits the power of the media to impact society. Two foundational media determinists are the Canadian scholars Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan. One of the best examples of technological determinism in media theory is Marshall McLuhan's theory "the medium is the message" and the ideas of his mentor Harold Adams Innis. Both these Canadian theorists saw media as the essence of civilization. The association of different media with particular mental consequences by McLuhan and others can be seen as related to technological determinism. It is this variety of determinism that is referred to as media determinism. According to McLuhan, there is an association between communications media/technology and language; similarly, Benjamin Lee Whorf argues that language shapes our perception of thinking (linguistic determinism). For McLuhan, media is a more powerful and explicit determinant than is the more general concept of language. McLuhan was not necessarily a hard determinist. As a more moderate version of media determinism, he proposed that our use of particular media may have subtle influences on us, but more importantly, it is the social context of use that is crucial. See also Media ecology. Media determinism is a form of the popular dominant theory of the relationship between technology and society. In a determinist view, technology takes on an active life of its own and is seen be as a driver of social phenomena. Innis believed that the social, cultural, political, and economic developments of each historical period can be related directly to the technology of the means of mass communication of that period. In this sense, like Dr. Frankenstein's monster, technology itself appears to be alive, or at least capable of shaping human behavior. However, it has been increasingly subject to critical review by scholars. For example, scholar Raymond Williams, criticizes media determinism and rather believes social movements define technological and media processes.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_determinism With regard to communications media, audience determinism is a viewpoint opposed to media determinism. This is described as instead of media being presented as doing things to people; the stress is on the way people do things with media. Individuals need to be aware that the term "deterministic" is a negative one for many social scientists and modern sociologists; in particular they often use the word as a term of abuse.

Communist society

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In Marxist thought, a communist society or the communist system is the type of society and economic system postulated to emerge from technological advances in the productive forces, representing the ultimate goal of the political ideology of communism. A communist society is characterized by common ownership of the means of production with free access to the articles of consumption and is classless, stateless, and moneyless, implying the end of the exploitation of labour.

Communism is a specific stage of socioeconomic development predicated upon a superabundance of material wealth, which is postulated to arise from advances in production technology and corresponding changes in the social relations of production. This would allow for distribution based on needs and social relations based on freely-associated individuals. The term communist society should be distinguished from the Western concept of the communist state, the latter referring to a state ruled by a party which professes a variation of Marxism–Leninism.

Xue Muqiao wrote that within the socialist mode of production there were several phases. Su Shaozhi and Feng Langrui article created two subdivisions within the socialist mode of production; the first phase was the transition from the capitalist mode of production to the socialist mode of production—the phase in which the proletariat seized power and set-up the dictatorship of the proletariat and in which undeveloped socialism was created. The second phase was advanced socialism; the socialism that Marx wrote about. The notion that socialism and Communism are distinct historical stages is alien to Karl Marx's work and only entered the lexicon of Marxism after his death. It is said that Karl Marx distinguishes between two phases of marketless communism: an initial phase, with labor vouchers, and a higher phase, with free access.

Economic aspects

A communist economic system would be characterized by advanced productive technology that enables material abundance, which in turn would enable the free distribution of most or all economic output and the holding of the means of producing this output in common. In this respect communism is differentiated from socialism, which, out of economic necessity, restricts access to articles of consumption and services based on one's contribution.

In further contrast to previous economic systems, communism would be characterized by the holding of natural resources and the means of production in common as opposed to them being privately owned (as in the case of capitalism) or owned by public or cooperative organizations that similarly restrict their access (as in the case of socialism). In this sense, communism involves the "negation of property" insofar as there would be little economic rationale for exclusive control over production assets in an environment of material abundance.

The fully developed communist economic system is postulated to develop from a preceding socialist system. Marx held the view that socialism—a system based on social ownership of the means of production—would enable progress toward the development of fully developed communism by further advancing productive technology. Under socialism, with its increasing levels of automation, an increasing proportion of goods would be distributed freely.

Social aspects

Individuality, freedom and creativity

A communist society would free individuals from long working hours by first automating production to an extent that the average length of the working day is reduced and second by eliminating the exploitation inherent in the division between workers and owners. A communist system would thus free individuals from alienation in the sense of having one's life structured around survival (making a wage or salary in a capitalist system), which Karl Marx referred to as a transition from the "realm of necessity" to the "realm of freedom". As a result, a communist society is envisioned as being composed of an intellectually-inclined population with both the time and resources to pursue its creative hobbies and genuine interests, and to contribute to creative social wealth in this manner. Marx considered "true richness" to be the amount of time one has at his disposal to pursue one's creative passions. Marx's notion of communism is in this way radically individualistic.

In fact, the realm of freedom actually begins only where labor which is determined by necessity and mundane considerations ceases; thus in the very nature of things it lies beyond the sphere of actual material production.

—Capital, Volume III, 1894

Marx's concept of the "realm of freedom" goes hand-in-hand with his idea of the ending of the division of labor, which would not be required in a society with highly automated production and limited work roles. In a communist society, economic necessity and relations would cease to determine cultural and social relations. As scarcity is eliminated, alienated labor would cease and people would be free to pursue their individual goals. Additionally, it is believed that the principle of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" could be fulfilled due to scarcity being non-existent.

Politics, law and governance

Marx and Engels maintained that a communist society would have no need for the state as it exists in contemporary capitalist society. The capitalist state mainly exists to enforce hierarchical economic relations, to enforce the exclusive control of property, and to regulate capitalistic economic activities—all of which would be non-applicable to a communist system.

Engels noted that in a socialist system the primary function of public institutions will shift from being about the creation of laws and the control of people into a technical role as an administrator of technical production processes, with a decrease in the scope of traditional politics as scientific administration overtakes the role of political decision-making. Communist society is characterized by democratic processes, not merely in the sense of electoral democracy, but in the broader sense of open and collaborative social and workplace environments.

Marx never clearly specified whether or not he thought a communist society would be just; other thinkers have speculated that he thought communism would transcend justice and create society without conflicts, thus, without the needs for rules of justice.

Transitional stages

Marx also wrote that between capitalist and communist society, there would be a transitory period known as the dictatorship of the proletariat. During this preceding phase of societal development, capitalist economic relationships would gradually be abolished and replaced with socialism. Natural resources would become public property, while all manufacturing centers and workplaces would become socially owned and democratically managed. Production would be organized by scientific assessment and planning, thus eliminating what Marx called the "anarchy in production". The development of the productive forces would lead to the marginalization of human labor to the highest possible extent, to be gradually replaced by automated labor.

Open-source and peer production

Many aspects of a communist economy have emerged in recent decades in the form of open-source software and hardware, where source code and thus the means of producing software is held in common and freely accessible to everyone; and to the processes of peer production where collaborative work processes produce freely available software that does not rely on monetary valuation.

Ray Kurzweil posits that the goals of communism will be realized by advanced technological developments in the 21st century, where the intersection of low manufacturing costs, material abundance and open-source design philosophies will enable the realization of the maxim "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs".

In Soviet ideology

The communist economic system was officially enumerated as the ultimate goal of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in its party platform. According to the 1986 Programme of the CPSU:

Communism is a classless social system with one form of public ownership of the means of production and with full social equality of all members of society. Under communism, the all-round development of people will be accompanied by the growth of the productive forces on the basis of continuous progress in science and technology, all the springs of social wealth will flow abundantly, and the great principle "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" will be implemented. Communism is a highly organised society of free, socially conscious working people a society in which public self-government will be established, a society in which labour for the good of society will become the prime vital requirement of everyone, a clearly recognised necessity, and the ability of each person will be employed to the greatest benefit of the people.

The material and technical foundation of communism presupposes the creation of those productive forces that open up opportunities for the full satisfaction of the reasonable requirements of society and the individual. All productive activities under communism will be based on the use of highly efficient technical facilities and technologies, and the harmonious interaction of man and nature will be ensured.

In the highest phase of communism the directly social character of labor and production will become firmly established. Through the complete elimination of the remnants of the old division of labor and the essential social differences associated with it, the process of forming a socially homogeneous society will be completed.

Communism signifies the transformation of the system of socialist self-government by the people, of socialist democracy into the highest form of organization of society: communist public self-government. With the maturation of the necessary socioeconomic and ideological preconditions and the involvement of all citizens in administration, the socialist state—given appropriate international conditions—will, as Lenin noted, increasingly become a transitional form "from a state to a non-state". The activities of state bodies will become non-political in nature, and the need for the state as a special political institution will gradually disappear.

The inalienable feature of the communist mode of life is a high level of consciousness, social activity, discipline, and self-discipline of members of society, in which observance of the uniform, generally accepted rules of communist conduct will become an inner need and habit of every person.

Communism is a social system under which the free development of each is a condition for the free development of all.

In Vladimir Lenin's political theory, a classless society would be a society controlled by the direct producers, organized to produce according to socially managed goals. Such a society, Lenin suggested, would develop habits that would gradually make political representation unnecessary, as the radically democratic nature of the Soviets would lead citizens to come to agree with the representatives' style of management. Only in this environment, Lenin suggested, could the state wither away, ushering in a period of stateless communism.

In Soviet ideology, Marx's concepts of the "lower and higher phases of communism" articulated in the Critique of the Gotha Program were reformulated as the stages of "socialism" and "communism". The Soviet state claimed to have begun the phase of "socialist construction" during the implementation of the first Five-Year Plans during the 1930s, which introduced a centrally planned, nationalized/collectivized economy. The 1962 Program of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, published under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev, claimed that socialism had been firmly established in the USSR, and that the state would now progress to the "full-scale construction of communism", although this may be understood to refer to the "technical foundations" of communism more so than the withering away of the state and the division of labor per se. However, even in the final edition of its program before the party's dissolution, the CPSU did not claim to have fully established communism, instead claiming that the society was undergoing a very slow and gradual process of transition.

Fictional portrayals

Main article: List of utopian literature

Several works of utopian fiction have portrayed versions of a communist society. Some examples include: Assemblywomen (391 BC) by Aristophanes, an early piece of utopian satire which mocks Athenian democracy's excesses through the story of the Athenian women taking control of the government and instituting a proto-communist utopia;

The Law of Freedom in a Platform (1652) by Gerrard Winstanley, a radical communist vision of an ideal state; News from Nowhere (1892) by William Morris, describing a future society based on common ownership and democratic control of the means of production; Red Star (1908, Russian: Красная звезда), Alexander Bogdanov's 1908 science fiction novel about a communist society on Mars; and The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia (1974) by Ursula K. Le Guin, set between a pair of planets: one that like Earth today is dominated by private property, nation states, gender hierarchy, and war, and the other an anarchist society without private property.

The economy and society of the United Federation of Planets in the Star Trek franchise has been described as a communist society where material scarcity has been eliminated due to the wide availability of replicator technology that enables free distribution of output, where there is no need for money.

The Culture novels by Iain M Banks are centered on a communist post-scarcity economy where technology is advanced to such a degree that all production is automated, and there is no use for money or property (aside from personal possessions with sentimental value). Humans in the Culture are free to pursue their own interests in an open and socially-permissive society. The society has been described by some commentators as "communist-bloc" or "anarcho-communist". Banks' close friend and fellow science fiction writer Ken MacLeod has said that The Culture can be seen as a realization of Marx's communism, but adds that "however friendly he was to the radical left, Iain had little interest in relating the long-range possibility of utopia to radical politics in the here and now. As he saw it, what mattered was to keep the utopian possibility open by continuing technological progress, especially space development, and in the meantime to support whatever policies and politics in the real world were rational and humane."

Globalization and disease

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalization_and_disease

Globalization, the flow of information, goods, capital, and people across political and geographic boundaries, allows infectious diseases to rapidly spread around the world, while also allowing the alleviation of factors such as hunger and poverty, which are key determinants of global health. The spread of diseases across wide geographic scales has increased through history. Early diseases that spread from Asia to Europe were bubonic plague, influenza of various types, and similar infectious diseases.

In the current era of globalization, the world is more interdependent than at any other time. Efficient and inexpensive transportation has left few places inaccessible, and increased global trade in agricultural products has brought more and more people into contact with animal diseases that have subsequently jumped species barriers (see zoonosis).

Globalization intensified during the Age of Exploration, but trading routes had long been established between Asia and Europe, along which diseases were also transmitted. An increase in travel has helped spread diseases to natives of lands who had not previously been exposed. When a native population is infected with a new disease, where they have not developed antibodies through generations of previous exposure, the new disease tends to run rampant within the population.

Etiology, the modern branch of science that deals with the causes of infectious disease, recognizes five major modes of disease transmission: airborne, waterborne, bloodborne, by direct contact, and through vector (insects or other creatures that carry germs from one species to another). As humans began traveling overseas and across lands which were previously isolated, research suggests that diseases have been spread by all five transmission modes.

Travel patterns and globalization

The Age of Exploration generally refers to the period between the 15th and 17th centuries. During this time, technological advances in shipbuilding and navigation made it easier for nations to explore outside previous boundaries. Globalization has had many benefits, for example, new products to Europeans were discovered, such as tea, silk and sugar when Europeans developed new trade routes around Africa to India and the Spice Islands, Asia, and eventually running to the Americas.

In addition to trading in goods, many nations began to trade in slavery. Trading in slaves was another way by which diseases were carried to new locations and peoples, for instance, from sub-Saharan Africa to the Caribbean and the Americas. During this time, different societies began to integrate, increasing the concentration of humans and animals in certain places, which led to the emergence of new diseases as some jumped in mutation from animals to humans.

During this time sorcerers' and witch doctors' treatment of disease was often focused on magic and religion, and healing the entire body and soul, rather than focusing on a few symptoms like modern medicine. Early medicine often included the use of herbs and meditation. Based on archaeological evidence, some prehistoric practitioners in both Europe and South America used trephining, making a hole in the skull to release illness. Severe diseases were often thought of as supernatural or magical. The result of the introduction of Eurasian diseases to the Americas was that many more native peoples were killed by disease and germs than by the colonists' use of guns or other weapons. Scholars estimate that over a period of four centuries, epidemic diseases wiped out as much as 90 percent of the American indigenous populations.

Map with the main travels of the Age of Discovery (began in 15th century).

In Europe during the age of exploration, diseases such as smallpox, measles and tuberculosis (TB) had already been introduced centuries before through trade with Asia and Africa. People had developed some antibodies to these and other diseases from the Eurasian continent. When the Europeans traveled to new lands, they carried these diseases with them. (Note: Scholars believe TB was already endemic in the Americas.) When such diseases were introduced for the first time to new populations of humans, the effects on the native populations were widespread and deadly. The Columbian Exchange, referring to Christopher Columbus's first contact with the native peoples of the Caribbean, began the trade of animals, and plants, and unwittingly began an exchange of diseases.

It was not until the 1800s that humans began to recognize the existence and role of germs and microbes in relation to disease. Although many thinkers had ideas about germs, it was not until French doctor Louis Pasteur spread his theory about germs, and the need for washing hands and maintaining sanitation (particularly in medical practice), that anyone listened. Many people were quite skeptical, but on May 22, 1881, Pasteur persuasively demonstrated the validity of his germ theory of disease with an early example of vaccination. The anthrax vaccine was administered to 25 sheep while another 25 were used as a control. On May 31, 1881, all of the sheep were exposed to anthrax. While every sheep in the control group died, each of the vaccinated sheep survived. Pasteur's experiment would become a milestone in disease prevention. His findings, in conjunction with other vaccines that followed, changed the way globalization affected the world.

Effects of globalization on disease in the modern world

Modern modes of transportation allow more people and products to travel around the world at a faster pace; they also open the airways to the transcontinental movement of infectious disease vectors. One example is the West Nile virus. It is believed that this disease reached the United States via "mosquitoes that crossed the ocean by riding in airplane wheel wells and arrived in New York City in 1999." With the use of air travel, people are able to go to foreign lands, contract a disease and not have any symptoms of illness until after they get home, and having exposed others to the disease along the way. Another example of the potency of modern modes of transportation in increasing the spread of disease is the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. Global transportation, back in the early 20th century, was able to spread a virus because the network of transmittance and trade was already global. The virus was found on crew members of ships and trains, and all the infected employees spread the virus everywhere they traveled. As a result, almost 50-100 million people died of this global transmission.

As medicine has progressed, many vaccines and cures have been developed for some of the worst diseases (plague, syphilis, typhus, cholera, malaria) that people develop. But, because the evolution of disease organisms is very rapid, even with vaccines, there is difficulty providing full immunity to many diseases. Since vaccines are made partly from the virus itself, when an unknown virus is introduced into the environment, it takes time for the medical community to formulate a curable vaccine. The lack of operational and functional research and data, which provide a quicker and more strategized pathway to a reliable vaccine, makes for a lengthy vaccine development timeline. Even though frameworks are set up and preparations plans are utilized to decrease the COVID-19 cases, a vaccine is the only way to ensure complete immunization. Some systems like the IIS, Immunization Information System, help give preliminary structure for quick responses to outbreaks and unknown viruses. These systems employ past data and research-based on modern world vaccine development successes. Finding vaccines at all for some diseases remains extremely difficult. Without vaccines, the global world remains vulnerable to infectious diseases.

Evolution of disease presents a major threat in modern times. For example, the current "swine flu" or H1N1 virus is a new strain of an old form of flu, known for centuries as Asian flu based on its origin on that continent. From 1918 to 1920, a post-World War I global influenza epidemic killed an estimated 50–100 million peens, including half a million in the United States alone. H1N1 is a virus that has evolved from and partially combined with portions of avian, swine, and human flu.

Globalization has increased the spread of infectious diseases from South to North, but also the risk of non-communicable diseases by transmission of culture and behavior from North to South. It is important to target and reduce the spread of infectious diseases in developing countries. However, addressing the risk factors of non-communicable diseases and lifestyle risks in the South that cause disease, such as use or consumption of tobacco, alcohol, and unhealthy foods, is important as well.

Even during pandemics, it is vital to recognize economic globalization in being a catalyst in the spread of the coronavirus. Economic factors are especially damaged by increased global lockdown regulations and trade blockades. As transportation globalized, economies expanded. Internalized economies saw great financial opportunities in global trade. With increased interconnectivity among economies and the globalization of the world economy, the spread of the coronavirus maximized the potentiality of global recessions. The coronavirus pandemic caused many economic disruptions, which caused a functional disconnect in the supply chain and the flow of goods. As transportation modes are relevant to the spread of infectious diseases, it is important to also recognize the economy being the motor of this globalized transmission system.

Specific diseases

Plague

Contemporary engraving of Naples during the Naples Plague in 1656

Bubonic plague is a variant of the deadly flea-borne disease plague, which is caused by the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis, that devastated human populations beginning in the 14th century. Bubonic plague is primarily spread by fleas that lived on the black rat, an animal that originated in South Asia and spread to Europe by the 6th century. It became common to cities and villages, traveling by ship with explorers. A human would become infected after being bitten by an infected flea. The first sign of an infection of bubonic plague is swelling of the lymph nodes, and the formation of buboes. These buboes would first appear in the groin or armpit area, and would often ooze pus or blood. Eventually infected individuals would become covered with dark splotches caused by bleeding under the skin. The symptoms would be accompanied by a high fever, and within four to seven days of infection, more than half of the affected would die.

The first recorded outbreak of plague occurred in China in the 1330s, a time when China was engaged in substantial trade with western Asia and Europe. The plague reached Europe in October 1347. It was thought to have been brought into Europe through the port of Messina, Sicily, by a fleet of Genoese trading ships from Kaffa, a seaport on the Crimean peninsula. When the ship left port in Kaffa, many of the inhabitants of the town were dying, and the crew was in a hurry to leave. By the time the fleet reached Messina, all the crew were either dead or dying; the rats that took passage with the ship slipped unnoticed to shore and carried the disease with them and their fleas.

Within Europe, the plague struck port cities first, then followed people along both sea and land trade routes. It raged through Italy into France and the British Isles. It was carried over the Alps into Switzerland, and eastward into Hungary and Russia. For a time during the 14th and 15th centuries, the plague would recede. Every ten to twenty years, it would return. Later epidemics, however, were never as widespread as the earlier outbreaks, when 60% of the population died.

Worldwide distribution of plague-infected animals, 1998

The third plague pandemic emerged in Yunnan province of China in the mid-nineteenth century. It spread east and south through China, reaching Guangzhou (Canton) and Hong Kong in 1894, where it entered the global maritime trade routes. Plague reached Singapore and Bombay in 1896. China lost an estimated 2 million people between plague's reappearance in the mid-nineteenth century and its retreat in the mid-twentieth. In India, between 1896 and the 1920s, plague claimed an estimated 12 million lives, most in the Bombay province. Plague spread into the countries around the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. From China it also spread eastward to Japan, the Philippines and Hawaii, and in Central Asia it spread overland into the Russian territories from Siberia to Turkistan. By 1901 there had been outbreaks of plague on every continent, and new plague reservoirs would produce regular outbreaks over the ensuing decades.

Measles

Measles is a highly contagious airborne virus spread by contact with infected oral and nasal fluids. When a person with measles coughs or sneezes, they release microscopic particles into the air. During the 4- to 12-day incubation period, an infected individual shows no symptoms, but as the disease progresses, the following symptoms appear: runny nose, cough, red eyes, extremely high fever and a rash.

Measles is an endemic disease, meaning that it has been continually present in a community, and many people developed resistance. In populations that have not been exposed to measles, exposure to the new disease can be devastating. In 1529, a measles outbreak in Cuba killed two-thirds of the natives who had previously survived smallpox. Two years later measles was responsible for the deaths of half the indigenous population of Honduras, and ravaged Mexico, Central America, and the Inca civilization.

Historically, measles was very prevalent throughout the world, as it is highly contagious. According to the National Immunization Program, 90% of people were infected with measles by age 15, acquiring immunity to further outbreaks. Until a vaccine was developed in 1963, measles was considered to be deadlier than smallpox. Vaccination reduced the number of reported occurrences by 98%. Major epidemics have predominantly occurred in unvaccinated populations, particularly among nonwhite Hispanic and African American children under 5 years old. In 2000 a group of experts determined that measles was no longer endemic in the United States. The majority of cases that occur are among immigrants from other countries.

Typhus

Typhus is caused by rickettsia, which is transmitted to humans through lice. The main vector for typhus is the rat flea. Flea bites and infected flea feaces in the respiratory tract are the two most common methods of transmission. In areas where rats are not common, typhus may also be transmitted through cat and opossum fleas. The incubation period of typhus is 7–14 days. The symptoms start with a fever, then headache, rash, and eventually stupor. Spontaneous recovery occurs in 80–90% of victims.

The first outbreak of typhus was recorded in 1489. Historians believe that troops from the Balkans, hired by the Spanish army, brought it to Spain with them. By 1490 typhus traveled from the eastern Mediterranean into Spain and Italy, and by 1494, it had swept across Europe. From 1500 to 1914, more soldiers were killed by typhus than from all the combined military actions during that time. It was a disease associated with the crowded conditions of urban poverty and refugees as well. Finally, during World War I, governments instituted preventative delousing measures among the armed forces and other groups, and the disease began to decline. The creation of antibiotics has allowed disease to be controlled within two days of taking a 200 mg dose of tetracycline.

Syphilis

An early medical illustration of people with syphilis, Vienna, 1498

Syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease that causes open sores, delirium and rotting skin, and is characterized by genital ulcers. Syphilis can also do damage to the nervous system, brain and heart. The disease can be transmitted from mother to child.

The origins of syphilis are unknown, and some historians argue that it descended from a twenty-thousand-year-old African zoonosis. Other historians place its emergence in the New World, arguing that the crews of Columbus's ships first brought the disease to Europe. The first recorded case of syphilis occurred in Naples in 1495, after King Charles VIII of France besieged the city of Naples, Italy. The soldiers, and the prostitutes who followed their camps, came from all corners of Europe. When they went home, they took the disease with them and spread it across the continent.

Smallpox

Smallpox is a highly contagious disease caused by the Variola virus. There are four variations of smallpox; variola major, variola minor, haemorrhagic, and malignant, with the most common being variola major and variola minor. Symptoms of the disease including hemorrhaging, blindness, back ache, vomiting, which generally occur shortly after the 12- to 17-day incubation period. The virus begins to attack skin cells, and eventually leads to an eruption of pimples that cover the whole body. As the disease progresses, the pimples fill up with pus or merge. This merging results in a sheet that can detach the bottom layer from the top layer of skin. The disease is easily transmitted through airborne pathways (coughing, sneezing, and breathing), as well as through contaminated bedding, clothing or other fabrics.

It is believed that smallpox first emerged over 3000 years ago, probably in India or Egypt. There have been numerous recorded devastating epidemics throughout the world, with high losses of life.

Smallpox was a common disease in Eurasia in the 15th century, and was spread by explorers and invaders. After Columbus landed on the island of Hispaniola during his second voyage in 1493, local people started to die of a virulent infection. Before the smallpox epidemic started, more than one million indigenous people had lived on the island; afterward, only ten thousand had survived.

During the 16th century, Spanish soldiers introduced smallpox by contact with natives of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan. A devastating epidemic broke out among the indigenous people, killing thousands.

In 1617, smallpox reached Massachusetts, probably brought by earlier explorers to Nova Scotia, Canada." By 1638 the disease had broken out among people in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1721 people fled the city after an outbreak, but the residents spread the disease to others throughout the Thirteen Colonies. Smallpox broke out in six separate epidemics in the United States through 1968.

The smallpox vaccine was developed in 1798 by Edward Jenner. By 1979 the disease had been completely eradicated, with no new outbreaks. The WHO stopped providing vaccinations and by 1986, vaccination was no longer necessary to anyone in the world except in the event of future outbreak.

Leprosy

New cases of leprosy in 2016

Leprosy, also known as Hansen's Disease, is caused by a bacillus, Mycobacterium leprae. It is a chronic disease with an incubation period of up to five years. Symptoms often include irritation or erosion of the skin, and effects on the peripheral nerves, mucosa of the upper respiratory tract and eyes. The most common sign of leprosy are pale reddish spots on the skin that lack sensation.

Leprosy originated in India, more than four thousand years ago. It was prevalent in ancient societies in China, Egypt and India, and was transmitted throughout the world by various traveling groups, including Roman Legionnaires, Crusaders, Spanish conquistadors, Asian seafarers, European colonists, and Arab, African, and American slave traders. Some historians believe that Alexander the Great's troops brought leprosy from India to Europe during the 3rd century BC. With the help of the crusaders and other travelers, leprosy reached epidemic proportions by the 13th century.

Once detected, leprosy can be cured using multi-drug therapy, composed of two or three antibiotics, depending on the type of leprosy. In 1991 the World Health Assembly began an attempt to eliminate leprosy. By 2005 116 of 122 countries were reported to be free of leprosy.

Malaria

Past and current malaria prevalence in 2009

On Nov. 6, 1880 Alphonse Laveran discovered that malaria (then called "Marsh Fever") was a protozoan parasite, and that mosquitoes carry and transmit malaria. Malaria is a protozoan infectious disease that is generally transmitted to humans by mosquitoes between dusk and dawn. The European variety, known as "vivax" after the Plasmodium vivax parasite, causes a relatively mild, yet chronically aggravating disease. The west African variety is caused by the sporozoan parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, and results in a severely debilitating and deadly disease.

Malaria was common in parts of the world where it has now disappeared, as the vast majority of Europe (disease of African descent are particularly diffused in the Empire romain) and North America . In some parts of England, mortality due to malaria was comparable to that of sub-Saharan Africa today. Although William Shakespeare was born at the beginning of a colder period called the "Little Ice Age", he knew enough ravages of this disease to include in eight parts. Plasmodium vivax lasted until 1958 in the polders of Belgium and the Netherlands. In the 1500s, it was the European settlers and their slaves who probably brought malaria on the American continent (we know that Columbus had this disease before his arrival in the new land). The Spanish Jesuit missionaries saw the Indians bordering on Lake Loxa Peru used the Cinchona bark powder to treat fevers. However, there is no reference to malaria in the medical literature of the Maya or Aztecs. The use of the bark of the "fever tree" was introduced into European medicine by Jesuit missionaries whose Barbabe Cobo who experimented in 1632 and also by exports, which contributed to the precious powder also being called "Jesuit powder". A study in 2012 of thousands of genetic markers for Plasmodium falciparum samples confirmed the African origin of the parasite in South America (Europeans themselves have been affected by this disease through Africa): it borrowed from the mid-sixteenth century and the mid-nineteenth the two main roads of the slave trade, the first leading to the north of South America (Colombia) by the Spanish, the second most leading south (Brazil) by Portugueses.

Parts of Third World countries are more affected by malaria than the rest of the world. For instance, many inhabitants of sub-Saharan Africa are affected by recurring attacks of malaria throughout their lives. In many areas of Africa, there is limited running water. The residents' use of wells and cisterns provides many sites for the breeding of mosquitoes and spread of the disease. Mosquitoes use areas of standing water like marshes, wetlands, and water drums to breed.

Tuberculosis

In 2007, the prevalence of TB per 100,000 people was highest in Sub-Saharan Africa, and was also relatively high in Asian countries like India.

The bacterium that causes tuberculosis, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, is generally spread when an infected person coughs and another person inhales the bacteria. Once inhaled TB frequently grows in the lungs, but can spread to any part of the body. Although TB is highly contagious, in most cases the human body is able to fend off the bacteria. But, TB can remain dormant in the body for years, and become active unexpectedly. If and when the disease does become active in the body, it can multiply rapidly, causing the person to develop many symptoms including cough (sometimes with blood), night sweats, fever, chest pains, loss of appetite and loss of weight. This disease can occur in both adults and children and is especially common among those with weak or undeveloped immune systems.

Tuberculosis (TB) has been one of history's greatest killers, taking the lives of over 3 million people annually. It has been called the "white plague". According to the WHO, approximately fifty percent of people infected with TB today live in Asia. It is the most prevalent, life-threatening infection among AIDS patients. It has increased in areas where HIV seroprevalence is high.

Air travel and the other methods of travel which have made global interaction easier, have increased the spread of TB across different societies. Luckily, the BCG vaccine was developed, which prevents TB meningitis and miliary TB in childhood. But, the vaccine does not provide substantial protection against the more virulent forms of TB found among adults. Most forms of TB can be treated with antibiotics to kill the bacteria. The two antibiotics most commonly used are rifampicin and isoniazid. There are dangers, however, of a rise of antibiotic-resistant TB. The TB treatment regimen is lengthy, and difficult for poor and disorganized people to complete, increasing resistance of bacteria. Antibiotic-resistant TB is also known as "multidrug-resistant tuberculosis." "Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis" is a pandemic that is on the rise. Patients with MDR-TB are mostly young adults who are not infected with HIV or have other existing illness. Due to the lack of health care infrastructure in underdeveloped countries, there is a debate as to whether treating MDR-TB will be cost effective or not. The reason is the high cost of "second-line" antituberculosis medications. It has been argued that the reason the cost of treating patients with MDR-TB is high is because there has been a shift in focus in the medical field, in particular the rise of AIDS, which is now the world's leading infectious cause of death. Nonetheless, it is still important to put in the effort to help and treat patients with "multidrug-resistant tuberculosis" in poor countries.

HIV/AIDS

Estimated HIV/AIDS prevalence among young adults (15-49) by country as of 2008

HIV and AIDS are among the newest and deadliest diseases. According to the World Health Organization, it is unknown where the HIV virus originated, but it appeared to move from animals to humans. It may have been isolated within many groups throughout the world. It is believed that HIV arose from another, less harmful virus, that mutated and became more virulent. The first two AIDS/HIV cases were detected in 1981. As of 2013, an estimated 1.3 million persons in the United States were living with HIV or AIDS, almost 110,000 in the UK and an estimated 35 million people worldwide are living with HIV".

Despite efforts in numerous countries, awareness and prevention programs have not been effective enough to reduce the numbers of new HIV cases in many parts of the world, where it is associated with high mobility of men, poverty and sexual mores among certain populations. Uganda has had an effective program, however. Even in countries where the epidemic has a very high impact, such as Eswatini and South Africa, a large proportion of the population do not believe they are at risk of becoming infected. Even in countries such as the UK, there is no significant decline in certain at-risk communities. 2014 saw the greatest number of new diagnoses in gay men, the equivalent of nine being diagnosed a day.

Initially, HIV prevention methods focused primarily on preventing the sexual transmission of HIV through behaviour change. The ABC Approach - "Abstinence, Be faithful, Use a Condom". However, by the mid-2000s, it became evident that effective HIV prevention requires more than that and that interventions need to take into account underlying socio-cultural, economic, political, legal and other contextual factors.

Ebola

Main article: 2014 West Africa Ebola virus outbreak

Cases of Ebola fever in Africa since 1976

The Ebola outbreak, which was the 26th outbreak since 1976, started in Guinea in March 2014. The WHO warned that the number of Ebola patients could rise to 20,000, and said that it used $489m (£294m) to contain Ebola within six to nine months. The outbreak was accelerating. Medecins sans Frontieres has just opened a new Ebola hospital in Monrovia, and after one week it is already a capacity of 120 patients. It said that the number of patients seeking treatment at its new Monrovia centre was increasing faster than they could handle both in terms of the number of beds and the capacity of the staff, adding that it was struggling to cope with the caseload in the Liberian capital. Lindis Hurum, MSF's emergency coordinator in Monrovia, said that it was humanitarian emergency and they needed a full-scale humanitarian response. Brice de la Vinge, MSF director of operations, said that it was not until five months after the declaration of the Ebola outbreak that serious discussions started about international leadership and coordination, and said that it was not acceptable.

Leptospirosis

Leptospirosis, also known as the "rat fever" or "field fever" is an infection caused by Leptospira. Symptoms can range from none to mild such as headaches, muscle pains, and fevers; to severe with bleeding from the lungs or meningitis. Leptospira is transmitted by both wild and domestic animals, most commonly by rodents. It is often transmitted by animal urine or by water or soil containing animal urine coming into contact with breaks in the skin, eyes, mouth, or nose. The countries with the highest reported incidence are located in the Asia-Pacific region (Seychelles, India, Sri Lanka and Thailand) with incidence rates over 10 per 1000,000 people s well as in Latin America and the Caribbean (Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Jamaica, El Salvador, Uruguay, Cuba, Nicaragua and Costa Rica) However, the rise in global travel and eco-tourism  has led to dramatic changes in the epidemiology of leptospirosis, and travelers from around the world have become exposed to the threat of leptospirosis. Despite decreasing prevalence of leptospirosis in endemic regions, previously non-endemic countries are now reporting increasing numbers of cases due to recreational exposure  International travelers engaged in adventure sports are directly exposed to numerous infectious agents in the environment and now comprise a growing proportion of cases worldwide.

Disease X

The World Health Organization (WHO) proposed the name Disease X in 2018 to focus on preparations and predictions of a major pandemic.

COVID-19

Main article: COVID-19 pandemic

The virus outbreak originated in Wuhan, China. It was first detected in December 2019, which is why scientists called it COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019). This outbreak has since caused a health issue in the city of Wuhan, China which evolved into a global pandemic. The World Health Organization officially declared it a pandemic on March 11, 2020.

As of May 2020, scientists believe that COVID-19, a zoonotic disease, is linked to the wet markets in China. Epidemiologists have also warned of the virus's contagiousness. Specialists have declared that the spread of SARS-CoV-2 is still unknown. The generally accepted notion among virologists and experts is that the action of inhaling droplets from an infected person is most likely the way SARS-CoV-2 is spreading. As more people travel and more goods and capital are traded globally, COVID-19 cases started to slowly appear all over the world.

Some of the symptoms that COVID-19 patients could experience is shortness of breath (which might be a sign of pneumonia), cough, fever, and diarrhea. The three most recorded and common symptoms are fever, tiredness, and coughing, as reported by the World Health Organization. COVID-19 is also categorized among the viruses that can show no symptoms in the carrier. Asymptomatic COVID-19 carriers transmitted the virus to many people which eventually did show symptoms, some being deadly.

The first number of cases was detected in Wuhan, China, the origin of the outbreak. On December 31, 2019, Wuhan Municipal Health Commission announced to the World Health Organization that the number of pneumonia cases that have been previously detected in Wuhan, Hubei Province is now under investigation. Proper identification of a novel coronavirus was developed and reported, making the pneumonia cases in China the first reported cases of COVID-19. As of November 25, 2021, there have been around 260 million confirmed COVID-19 cases around the world. Confirmed deaths as a result of COVID-19 is over 5 million globally. Over 235 million of the 260 million confirmed COVID-19 cases have successfully recovered. Countries showing lack of preparation and awareness in January and February 2020 are now reporting the highest numbers of COVID-19 cases. The United States leads the worldwide count with almost 49 million confirmed cases. Deaths in The United States have crossed 798,000, maintaining the highest death count of any country. Brazil, Russia, Spain, UK, and Italy have all suffered because of the increase in cases, leading to an impaired health system unable to attend to so many sick people at one time.

The first-ever confirmed case of COVID-19 in the United States was in Washington State on January 21, 2020. It was a man who had just returned from China. Following this incident, on January 31, 2020, Trump announced that travel to and from China is restricted, effective on February 2, 2020. On March 11, 2020, Trump issues executive order to restrict travel from Europe, except for the UK and Ireland. On May 24, 2020, Trump bans travel from Brazil, as Brazil becomes the new center of the coronavirus pandemic. International restrictions were set to decrease international entities of entering a country, potentially carrying the virus. This is because governments understand that with the accessibility in travel and free trade, any person can travel and carry the virus to a new environment. Recommendations to U.S. travelers have been set by the State Department. As of March 19, 2020, some countries have been marked Level 4 "do not travel". The coronavirus pandemic travel restrictions have affected almost 93% of the global population. Increased travel restrictions effectively aid multilateral and bilateral health organizations to control the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19.

Non-communicable disease

Globalization can benefit people with non-communicable diseases such as heart problems or mental health problems. Global trade and rules set forth by the World Trade Organization can actually benefit the health of people by making their incomes higher, allowing them to afford better health care. While it has to be admitted making many non-communicable diseases more likely as well. Also the national income of a country, mostly obtained by trading on the global market, is important because it dictates how much a government spends on health care for its citizens. It also has to be acknowledged that an expansion in the definition of disease often accompanies development, so the net effect is not clearly beneficial due to this and other effects of increased affluence. Metabolic syndrome is one obvious example. Although poorer countries have not yet experienced this and are still having the diseases listed above.

Economic globalization and disease

Globalization is multifaceted in implementation and is objective in the framework and systemic ideology. Infectious diseases spread mainly as a result of the modern globalization of many and almost all industries and sectors. Economic globalization is the interconnectivity of world economies and the interdependency of internal and external supply chains. With the advancement of science and technology, the possibility of economic globalization is enabled even more. Economic factors have been defined by global boundaries rather than national. The cost of activities of economic measures has been significantly decreased as a result of the advancements in the fields of technology and science, slowly creating an interconnected economy lacking centralized integration. As economies increase levels of integration and singularity within the partnership, any global financial and economic disruptions would cause a global recession. Collateral damage is further observed with the increase in integrated economic activity. Countries lean more on economic benefits than health benefits, which lead to a miscalculated and ill-reported health issue.