The future of social security in the European Union in the global realities of the 21st century through the prism of mega-trend to minimise labour and automation costs

In the contemporary global economic reality, many social, cultural and political problems emerge. Most of all, this problem is connected with economic and financial spheres. The paradox of contradictions manifests itself between the objective tendency of globalization and universalization and subjective particularism and egoistic interests of transnational corporations, governments and societies towards solving and eliminating them. The following paper presents these problems from the point of view of the threats posed by megetrend of minimizing the labor costs and its far-reaching future results. The important question of robotization and automatization, which should be coordinated with a vision of a macro-scale social policy, is also mentioned. It is emphasised that such policy may be conducted in the area of European Union, because particular states, includuing Poland, are not able to cope with such challenges.

Unification and diversification of cultural life

Nowadays, one can observe signs of world’s unification and, at the same time, its diversification. These interdependences relate primarily to the economic, social, political and cultural spheres. It is assumed that in the postwar period, Western civilization has shifted from the industrial to the post-industrial phase, which is called information, consumer or a business civilization. There are many factors and phenomena that imply the unification and diversification of cultural life in modern conditions, closely related to uniformity and standardization. The most important of these are: scientific and technological progress and development, legal solutions and media. The modern socio-political and economic image of Europe reveals a characteristic discrepancy between declarations and reality visible especially in the creation and functioning processes of the European Union. The process of unification and disintegration of Europe raises issues such as: a crisis of values, of humanism, depreciation of moral principles.

New Zealand: idea of nation

New Zealand has been a nation of firsts and innovators of many occasions. Moreover, it has also been a leading nation for civil and humanitarian issues. Peter Fraser was eager to invite over seven hundred Polish children to the country during World War II to keep them safe from the threat. Modern world has been shaped by past experience, where apart from cultural heritage and people’s backgrounds or origins neoliberalism created new conditions in which people around the world struggle to live. Neo liberalism along with capitalism unifying our world have influenced the notion of common values for different people. Nation is one of such values. We are now in the 21st century and it seems that New Zealand is at the forefront of progress on global scale in terms of understanding the concept of nation in global conditions. It is common knowledge that New Zealand depends mostly on exports, does it mean that New Zealand must compete by nation–branding with others on the global market?