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