Nations, Corporations, Churches, and NGOs
While government remains critically important in the modern world, and becomes perhaps more important each day as we careen from crisis to crisis, many other forms of social organization also have increasingly significant social impact.
Corporations wield increasing power through their control of resources. The giant corporations are now thought of as global entities, and they are less and less tied to the values or policies of a particular nation.
Similarly, many religious groups have increasing influence over the beliefs of their members, and display that influence in elections and other social forums. The Catholic Church, for example, has more than a billion members, and its ideological and religious views play a key role in the political lives of the nations where many Catholics live.
And now we are seeing that non-governmental organizations such as Greenpeace are increasingly influential in shaping world opinion, playing an advocacy role for issues and causes that they feel are important.
These four forces - nations, corporations, churches, and NGOs each have their own viewpoints, goals, and needs, and as they seek to fulfill them, they come into conflict over their different visions of the future, creating tremendous complexity in our world.