Moral principle applied to politics and economics will create a sustainable and just civilization

Will we learn to make a civilization that will last? Or will we once again apply more varied and more intensive means of extracting resources, over-exploit our resource base and expand our population beyond what is sustainable--to the point of catastrophic collapse?

The defects that have caused civilizations to collapse in centuries past are still with us. The difference between then and now is that, when civilizations collapsed in the past, there was always an 'elsewhere' to flee to when things started to fall apart. There were other civilizations in other places functioning relatively well. Now there is no 'elsewhere' to go to, and national economies are more thoroughly connected to one another. When the system descends into chaos, it will be a global failure. We need to make our civilization a sustainable phenomenon, to avoid disaster.

We need to limit the taking and degradation of natural resource wealth so that our impacts on the environment will be sustainable long-term. If we continue to despoil the planet and degrade the capacity of the environment to sustain us and the larger community of life, and if we allow abject poverty to persist, some people may perpetrate violent and destructive acts with the aim of eliminating what they see as an evil, oppressive and hopeless system.

In the distant past, an impulse to destroy was part of a natural phenomenon wherein unhealthy societies disintegrate and more healthy neighboring societies take their place.

Destructive impulses of disaffected youth may have served a purpose when societies were small-scale phenomena and neighboring tribes offered examples of better ways for how to live on the Earth. These impulses never brought the risk of global collapse when the tools at hand were all powered by human muscles. Now the destructive power that one person or a small group can wield is enormous. Now all the neighboring societies are part of one large, intertwined global system. No healthy nearby society is going to come to supplant this dysfunctional system when (if) it fails. Neighboring societies suffer the same systemic problems of poverty, disparity and profligate use of scarce resources that we can all see closer to home.

An impulse to destruction was not such a dangerous thing in small-scale, primitive societies. There were always neighboring societies that could move into the landscape occupied by a society in decline. In that context, acts of destruction could serve to hasten the transition from an unsustainable, dysfunctional system to a sustainable one. But within the context of a global civilization, catastrophic collapse would mean widespread famine and ecological disaster. For the sake of our offspring and the larger community of life, we must correct systemic defects without allowing complete collapse of our institutions and descent into chaos.

Extremists (and demagogues) can and will exploit discontent to further their agenda. We can enhance prospects for a peaceful, harmonious community not so much through combating and apprehending people who would do harm but rather by making a healthy, sustainable and more just society that the vast majority of people will want to be a part of and that very few people will want to subvert.

When we take part in political and economic systems, we must bring a respect for basic principles regarding political rights and rights to property. As a matter of policy, we must NOT allow levels of pollution to exceed what most people believe is acceptable. We must NOT allow the rate at which we deplete limited natural resources to exceed what most people would say is appropriate.

If we were to truly respect property rights, polluting industries would be paying money to the people when they put their unwanted materials into our air and water. Natural wealth can be thought of as belonging to all. Natural resource wealth is the Commons. It should be recognized as belonging to all, to the extent that it can be said to belong to anyone. The most efficient way to manage the taking of Commons resources, to keep within sustainable limits, is to charge a fee in proportion to value taken or damage done. Respecting public as well as private property rights would mean that industries pay the people when they take or degrade that which is the common inheritance of all humanity (and the heritage, too, of our fellow inhabitants of Earth who are members of other species).

We could end abject poverty AND reduce the harmful impacts on the environment of our economic system (and achieve a truly democratic society) by recognizing the people at large as the owners of Earth's natural resource wealth and as the ultimate authority in defining limits to environmental impacts.

Attaching fees to actions that foul the Earth, deplete limited resources or push ecosystems out of balance and destroy wildlife habitat would produce a kind of a sensory or autonomic nervous system for Earth. Injury or harm to ecosystems would be reduced. Ecological health and balance could be maintained. We would transform ourselves from something resembling cancer cells to something more like brain cells of Earth--if we bring our economics and politics into accord with basic principles. Respect property rights--fully.

This proposal is consistent with a marriage of libertarian and green political philosophies. It is a synthesis of capitalist and communist economic paradigms. It offers a biological model and ethical foundation for political and economic systems.

Is there any more direct path to a secure and sustainable society? Let's go! Let's build a better civilization. It can be our gift to the younger generation. Why shouldn't we do this? Of course we should.

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@TallPhilosopher John Champagne

Natural Law requires respect of PUBLIC property rights, too 

Respect of Natural Law brings a remedy for what ails civilization.

When we understand human rights as reflecting basic laws of social interaction, we may notice that these fundamental rights can help us solve our most serious problems. We might come to recognize that respecting basic rights is necessary for the healthy functioning of society. 

If human rights are a kind of natural law, then moral claims that citizens might make (such as a claim of a right to share in deciding limits to pollution and limits to rates of taking of natural resources) can be seen as manifestations of a natural phenomenon. We might recognize that, to ensure the healthy functioning of society, citizens must assert their claims to natural rights, and must act in a way so as to create systems of government that assure these rights are respected in practice.

Presently, our system of government does not embody all natural rights in its functioning. The idea that natural wealth (what we might call commons or public property) ought to be shared equally is reflected in the writings of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, Thomas Paine, Adam Smith and others. Yet our society does not manifest this idea in practice. Natural wealth (or a monetary representation of that wealth) is not shared. Rates of putting pollution and depleting resources are not being held to limits acceptable to most people. We lack even a formal process for discerning what most people would find acceptable regarding various kinds of impact on the environment.

This systemic flaw, this failure to embody a basic moral precept in practice, means that harm is done to the environment by industries without a direct and proportional economic cost being incurred. A consequence of this moral defect is that prices of things do not reflect environmental impacts such as pollution, resource depletion and habitat destruction. Prices lie to us about true costs, so we make bad decisions directly related to what kind of harmful impact is being hidden.

A visceral example of harm related to this lack of transparency is the intense crowding of animals in what has been called the 'animal exploitation industry': By crowding animals together more and by feeding antibiotics to them, expenses can be reduced and profits increased, but at potentially very high cost. More crowding means more stress and suffering of animals held captive; Routine use of antibiotics means more rapid loss of effectiveness of antibiotics for fighting disease in human beings (as pathogenic bacteria are given ample opportunity to develop resistance).

Animals are more stressed, the environment is more polluted and antibiotic resistance develops faster because industries are allowed to externalize their costs. These adverse impacts--the costs imposed on society and on animal captives--are not reflected in prices.

Living systems, including human society, are delicate, intricate phenomena. The fact that it is always easier to tear down and destroy something than it is to build and create reflects the nature of the underlying enabling conditions that make complex and intricate systems possible: Enabling conditions must be stable over time. Stability is necessary in order for any creative or developmental process to unfold. 

The conditions necessary for maintenance of a healthy society require order and structure rather than chaos or randomness. Order and structure are necessary whether we are talking about making a tower of blocks, a work of art or a civilization. Civilization will be stronger and more resilient when most everyone believes that we will all benefit by working to improve on what we have made. We cannot have many people wanting to destroy this nascent global civilization to see what else might take its place. For our own sake, and for the sake of those who will follow after us, there must be very few of us who believe that the world we have created is ugly or hurtful or evil. We need a society that all can believe in and feel glad to be a part of.

The rules we live by must be seen as fair. We must make a system that recognizes the people as the rightful owners of natural resource wealth, so that the world we create together will not be a world that has more paving or pollution or noise or extraction of limited resources than what most people would say is acceptable. Then we will have a true democracy.

If we limit or discourage excessive taking of resources... or putting of pollution... or destruction of wildlife habitat... or degradation of our view of the stars from outdoor lighting... if we limit harmful impacts on the environment by charging a fee to offending industries, then the fee proceeds (a monetary representation of what we all own in common) could be shared equally among all the world's people. (A system of random polls can show us when we have reached a point where impacts that had been excessive will have been brought into line with what most people think is acceptable. At that point, the associated fees will be set at the right amount.) We will have a more equitable society. No one will live in abject poverty.

Equal sharing of natural wealth promotes justice and sustainability

@TallPhilosopher

We need to make a healthy society

Moral principles now neglected must be embodied in practice to create a healthy (sustainable and just) civilization.

Human beings have a shared right to benefit from natural wealth. We have a shared right to decide limits to putting pollution and depleting resources. If these basic moral precepts are manifest in reality, there will not be more rapid depletion of resources or putting of pollution than what most people think is acceptable. There will not be people across the world chronically stressed by economic insecurity or oppressed by extreme poverty.

If we recognize that air and water and other natural resources belong to all people, then we should expect that industries will pay fees when they put pollution or deplete resources, and the fee proceeds should go to all people, to each an equal amount.

If we want to limit humans' impacts on the environment, so that they do not exceed what most people think is acceptable, then we should take a random poll (really a series of random polls) to discover whether actual conditions are in line with what average opinion says is best. If poll results show that most people want more strict (or relaxed) limits on impacts of a particular kind, then the associated fee can be increased (or reduced) accordingly.

Demagogues rise to power by exploiting feelings of insecurity, hatred and fear. When people experience economic stability and security because they receive their share of (a monetary representation of) natural wealth, feelings of economic insecurity that might be triggered by technological change or immigration will be alleviated.

When people see that society is sustainable and they have a reason to expect a brighter future (because industries shift to sustainable business models to promote profits in an economy that takes full account of external costs, including costs to the environment), fear of what the future might bring fades. A demagogue will find no traction in a society that embodies in practice the idea that natural wealth belongs to all.

Societies cannot flourish in the context of chronic neglect of moral principles. Systemic flaws today cause extreme poverty and disparity of wealth. These same flaws thwart the healthy functioning of the economy by making ecologically-destructive business models appear profitable to industry. A policy of charging fees for pollution and resource depletion, with proceeds shared to all, would address both problems at a systemic level. Moral precepts will be embodied in practice. Our civilization can be made sustainable and more just by respecting basic moral principles.

We need to deny traction for demagogues. We need to make a sustainable and just civilization.

John Champagne        @TallPhilosopher


Equal sharing of natural wealth promotes justice and sustainability