This is the starting place for examining in more detail the claims made on the front page, ‘Imagine a world’. It reproduces the front page, but with the inclusion of links that allow the reader to explore particular themes and the associated arguments in more depth. New links will be added over time. Follow any links attached to a heading before clicking on the links associated with bullets that lie beneath the heading. Once you have finished return to this page for more arguments.
A world in which everyone has…
- a secure and comfortable place to live
- affordable access to healthy, nutritious food
- free access to modern healthcare and medicine
- free access to childcare and care in old age
- free schooling, higher education, and vocational training
- free use of the internet and public transport
- free and easy access to peaceful, unpolluted green spaces
- the guarantee of a paid job doing meaningful work
- sufficient income when they retire or cannot work
- time to relax, socialize, and pursue hobbies
- the knowledge that all of these rights are forever protected
Could such a world really exist?
Yes! We have almost everything we need to achieve it, including:
- A very hospitable planet with fertile soils, abundant fresh water, and rich biodiversity
- 8 billion fellow members of a uniquely intelligent and capable species
- The technological capacity to meet all our needs in a sustainable way
So what is missing?
The following elements are still missing:
- A globally united political movement committed to creating the world most of us would want to live in
- A distribution of power and wealth that is compatible with a healthy society and a healthy planet
- An economic system that can deliver prosperity without gradually destroying the planet
Obstacles
To build the world we want for ourselves and our children, we need to overcome three major obstacles. Each are connected and it is impossible to remove one without simultaneously removing the others.
- Economic inequality – it becomes increasingly harmful to our societies and to the planet as it deepens
- Climate change – it threatens our homes, our health and our food supply
- Ecological degradation – fuelled by inequality and climate change, it must be stopped if the planet is to remain hospitable to human civilisation
Politics
Unfortunately, politicians are not taking these obstacles sufficiently seriously.
- This is because they have other priorities and believe they will be punished at the ballot box if they try to implement truly transformative policies.
- It is because the voting public are distracted by other concerns, such as immigration, and day to day survival under the current system.
- Above all, it is because the richest sectors of society use their disproportionate influence over politicians, public opinion, and the media to promote policies that keep the obstacles in place.
Politics today serves the wealthy and comfortably off but has little or nothing to offer younger generations or those for whom life is a permanent struggle to make ends meet. This needs to change.
Some fundamental truths
In order to create the world we desire, we must convince our political leaders and the general public of these fundamental truths:
- To protect democracy and deliver a high standard of living for everyone, extreme economic inequality must be treated as one of the most pressing problems we face
- To avoid catastrophic climate change and ecological disaster, we need a major overhaul in the mix of goods and services that our economies produce
- More shopping does not make people happier – personal relationships, community, how we spend most of our time, as well as physical and financial security are what really count
- The world we want to live in can only be built if countries work together rather than trying to undermine each other
So what do we do?
Those of us who broadly agree with what has been outlined above must urgently do the following:
- Create a united and globally-orientated movement for human progress
- Build an internationally recognisable brand for the movement
- Make the brand a unifying banner under which progressive people and organisations across the world can mobilise
How do we do that?
Here is a suggestion for how it might be done:
- Create a new social media platform designed to recruit and coordinate everyone with a genuine interest in making the world a better place
- Support growth of the platform with the ultimate aim of exceeding Facebook, Tik-Tok and Instagram in terms of profile, scale and reach
- Use the platform to design a political manifesto for genuine human progress
- Find a way for platform members to contribute constructively to the manifesto’s development
- Use the manifesto and the platform to empower genuinely progressive leaders and politicians around the world