Planetary ecosocialism without the Earth Constitution is not possible. You cannot have portions of the world clinging to the destructive process of capital accumulation if we want a sustainable global economy. Neither can you have portions of the world clinging to the destructive process of militarism, which we have seen is inherently anti-ecological. Unless everyone is united in the conversion of the world to democratic ecosocialism through authentic planetary democracy, there is no chance that we will convert to true sustainability. Once, united, every person born will be a legal world citizen, and the common good of humanity and future generations will become crystal-clear common sense.
In addition to uniting humanity, we need the global government to provide comprehensive research, monitoring and guidance for ecologically sensitive economics and politics. The global government will also rest on the best and most comprehensive knowledge provided by science and human wisdom. All the ecological systems of the planet fit together in intricate and often surprising ways, and every local human community will need this knowledge and access to a comprehensive vision so as to be able to coordinate with other local communities around the global for true democracy and sustainability. The dynamic interface and interdependency of ecological systems worldwide (including the oceans, the atmosphere, and the polar regions) requires a centralized, democratically run, system of management and coordination.
The Constitution for the Federation of Earth supplies all of these necessities for a sustainable Earth System. Besides uniting humanity under a planetary common good, it, first, makes all essential planetary resources the responsibility of the Earth Federation government to be cooperatively run through the agencies of the Integrative Complex and the World Parliament. Second, it institutes democratically run global public banking, along with debt-free money creation, thereby freeing all nations from their international debt and instituting a banking system predicated on investment for human and ecological needs rather than, as now, a global system of private banking directed to maximizing private profit.
Third, the Earth Constitution makes ecological sustainability of the Earth system both a right and a responsibility for every person on Earth. This effort is no longer a direct responsibility of nation-states, since a fragmented, dis-coordinated system of individual national entities, as now, who are expected to assume voluntary responsibility without consequences for failure, cannot possibly achieve the level of integration and coordination necessary for planetary sustainability. Fourth, the Earth Constitution progressively and rationally disarms the nations, ending world militarism, and redirecting the immense waste of money and ingenuity from the practice of destroying one another toward multiple practices of cooperating with one another to make our planet a decent home for all its citizens and future generations.
Fifth, the Earth Constitution establishes the World Service Authority in which tens of millions of persons from around the world can leave their former military, capitalist, or jobless lifestyles and join together in global projects for the replanting of forests, conversion to clean energy sources, and the restoration of the integrity of our oceans, land and air. Finally, the Earth Federation government will have immense resources dedicated to education and training for children and adults worldwide in the rationales for democracy, sustainability, peace, and justice. Through this global effort in the name of the democratically united people of Earth, the new generations will grow up thinking differently. They will be thinking in terms of ecological systems, economic cooperation, peaceful relationships, and global harmony.
Those who argue that such things must happen from the "grass roots up" only are naà ¯ve and mistaken. We must indeed empower the grass roots in all these principles, and local democracy including ecosocialism must be freely practiced everywhere. But this is not possible under a global anarchism without a central set of principles ensuring justice, peace, and sustainability everywhere on Earth. Top and bottom must meet one another in global harmony and mutual empowerment. Ratification of the Earth Constitution is the key to making this transition from the current failed and ecologically destructive system of capitalism and sovereign nation states to a system of global peace, justice, and sustainability. Our immediate task must be to get this message out to the people of Earth before it is too late.
(Glen T. Martin is Professor of Philosophy and Emeritus Chair of the Peace Studies Program at Radford Virginia. He is President of the World Constitution and Parliament Association (WCPA) and author of 11 books and hundreds of articles, including The Anatomy of a Sustainable World (2013). His newest book is Global Democracy and Human Self-Transcendence: The Power of the Future for Planetary Transformation (2018).)
Brief Bibliography
Angus, Ian (2016). Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System. Monthly Review Press.
Hazen, Robert M. (2013). The Story of Earth: The First 4.5 Billion Years. Penguin Books.
Kovel, Joel (2008). The Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism or the End of the World? Zed Books.
Martin, Glen T. (2018). Global Democracy and Human Self-Transcendence: The Power of the Future for Planetary Transformation. Cambridge Scholars Press.
Prims, Nomi (2018). Collusion: How Central Bankers Rigged the World. Nation Books.
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