Verantwortung in der globalen Wirtschaftsordnung: eine funktionalistische Konzeption

The global economic system has a massive impact on state economies and hence on most people’s lives. It is therefore necessary to discuss what should be done with its current structure and its future appearance. To do this properly, at first it must be clarified what is meant by “global economic system” and which actors have, or will have, the capability to affect it. It will be shown that the actors who can influ ence the weakly regulated global markets are mainly part of political and economic institutions, but also individual customers. To assign prospective and retrospective responsibility for the state of the global economic system to these actors, I draw on a functionalist approach to responsibility. The most decisive, but not the only criterion to hold someone responsible according to this approach – which is also called conse quentialist, pragmatic, instrumental, or revisionist – is efficiency of the assignment. That is why the power of the actors to shape the system is crucial in a functionalist account of responsibility. On the one hand, the strength of such an account is that it rests on metaphysically weak assumptions, on the other hand, that it is appropriate to dealing with the relevant actors. The limits of such a theory are defined by the com plexity of the institutions of the global economic system, and the various actors who can affect the system. These limits, however, also apply to other theories of respon sibility. Moreover, the specific problems of a functionalist approach to responsibility are less severe when institutions are concerned. Therefore a functionalist account should be the basis when someone is held responsible for aspects of the global eco