Building a New World

The global free market does not work.

It subjugates the entire human race to the greed of a tiny economic elite. It forces down the living standards of the vast majority of the world's population. It endangers human survival by ravaging the environment. It fosters war, terrorism, and oppression.
All over the world -- in the developed countries as well as the developing -- people are looking for ways to fight back against the neoliberal system. People are looking for ways to build a new world, based on meeting the needs of the whole human community, rather than just swelling the profits of the few.

This site is set up to help people find the resources they need to join that fight and build that world.

We cannot know how that future will look in any detail. No single group will control the struggle to build it. There will be room for everyone who wants to take part. But we can say a few things about it already.

The new world must be sustainable.

This one is obvious. By the time the world population (hopefully) levels off sometime in the middle of the next century, there will probably be some nine billion or so of us riding this planet. We will all have to be provided for. And it will have to be done in a way that does not destroy the planet's capacity to keep doing so.
We have to do three things. We have to get a handle on population growth. We have to continue technological development and direct it toward using our resources more efficiently -- higher output with less pollution. And we have to make sure that what we do produce is distributed os as to provide enough for all.
This site will provide resources to join the fight for environmental preservation.

The new world will be based on social equality.

The time is long gone when the downtrodden and excluded -- women, young people, the poor, ethnic and religious minorities, and so forth -- could be persuaded to submit to their traditional situation. Today they demand to be included in the community as full members. If they are denied, they will war against the new order until they either gain admittance or bring the whole system down.
Those in positions of wealth and power will follow strategies to keep excluded majority divided and weak. They exploit -- even if they do not create -- racial, ethnic, religious, and class hostility. Short-sighted members of the excluded groups will play into their hands. Those of us who want a workable and positive future must therefore close ranks against racism, sexism, homophobia, and religious bigotry.
This site will provide resources to help the excluded unite and work together to build a world of equality.

The new world will be based on individual freedom.

This is the flip-side of social equality. As traditional authorities and elites are pulled down, individuals will be left free -- and will have the responsibility -- to make their own decisions. Furthermore, as the world communication system becomes ever more efficient, people everywhere will have access to ideas and information to challenge checks on their self-determination. Traditional value systems cannot retain their claims of absolute validity when people can learn about other ways of doing things.
This site will provide resources to fight censorship and to enforce human rights.

The new world will be based on equal respect for all cultural traditions.

Just as people will no longer submit to being placed in positions of inequality and exclusion, so they insist on respect for their own values and beliefs. And, of course, a world based on individual freedom will have to let people select the traditions they wish to follow -- or not follow.
This site will provide resources to preserve religious freedom and to build the new world from a variety of cultural and religious starting points.

The new world will be based on mass participation

If the world is to be sustainable, and if the rewards of its achievements are to be shared by all of its people, then we will need a high rate of innovation and technological progress, and that will require that we mobilize the creativity of all our citizens. We will have to provide ways for all people to bring their minds to bear on our common problems -- ways for them to participate.
In addition, the whole thrust of modern society -- especially as elites lose all control of the spread of information and ideas -- is to level authorities and traditions. If we are to build a workable society, we will have to find something to put in their place, a new source of legitimacy. The democratically expressed will of the community -- all the community, not just the elites -- will have to do it.
Besides, the surest way for people to keep their equality is to have all of them taking part in how society is run.
This site will provide resources to build alternative economic and political systems.

In sum, the world must achieve a planetary democracy or perish.

Sometimes these goals will clash.

Many cultures, for example, have long traditions of sexual inequality and lack of individual freedom. Many of them also have a nasty habit of excluding or persecuting adherents of other traditions. Those cultures will not be destroyed by the coming of equality and freedom -- though it may sometimes look like it -- but they will be transformed. Their own people -- especially women and young people -- will find ways of adhering to their traditions by adapting them to new conditions.

More often, the struggles for these goals will reinforce each other.

The surest way to get a handle on population growth, for example, is to achieve equality for women. There is also evidence that the key to sustainable development actually lies in raising living standards in developing countries.

As we said above, no single group will control the process of change. Each individual taking part will be drawn to the particular struggles that reflect his or her own needs and values. But we should always keep in mind that these are all aspects of a larger process -- leading to a world transformed and renewed.

Check out the pages in the box to the left. (And we also have a page for people who disagree strongly.)

So welcome to the fight

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