The Green Manifesto

Abstract

            Special Track 1: Future of Human Social Systems: What Might the Evolution of Complex, Adaptive, and Evolvable Systems Tell Us About Where We Are Going?

            My book Green Rising: An Alternative Future deals with the theme of this track.

            Where we are going is not a mystery. There are numerous discussion of where we are going, beginning with Limits to Growth. Darwin was the one who described the process of evolution as “selection,” or decision making. The fundamental characteristic of complex, adaptive, and evolvable systems is that they make decisions. Green Rising looks at the question from the point of view of decision making. The book considers “How do these decisions to destroy the environment get made?”  And it looks at that from the view of a holarchy with decisions at each level: corporate, political, philosophical and cultural.

            Decisions are historical. Our culture has chosen a direction. In order for us to make a decision to change that direction we have to have alternatives. The book sets forth possible alternatives to our current system.

            These are summarized in the book's last appendix: The Green Manifesto. The rest of this abstract is a summary of the Manifesto which is a summary of the book which is available as a free download at the website, www.berserkrpress.com.

       The world system is currently in danger from the growth of human beings and their economy. We must move from a growth economy to a sustainable economy. This requires change at the various levels of the holarchy. The capitalist system of compound interest creates a constant economic demand for growth. Controlling growth requires controlling capitalism. The capitalist corporation is a corrupt system that focuses the corporation on maximizing shareholder value, capitalist growth. This system of incorporation must be replaced by a system that equalizes stakeholder value. The free market is a system for distributing production based on wealth. It is based on inequality and increases inequality. The combination of the capitalist corporation with its drive for efficiency and the free market with its growing inequality creates a constant unemployment and poverty that generates a general popular demand for more jobs and thus economic growth and an exponentially growing consumption. The free market system must be replaced by a guaranteed liveable income and the egalitarian provision of essential social services like education and health care. Our political parties with their neoliberal ideologies define the goal of the economy as increasing levels of consumption. Instead of looking at our society as a collection of individuals each trying to maximize consumption, we need to look at our society as an organic whole seeking the health of the ten basic biological functions of a society. In order for us to make the shift from looking at society as a mechanism to looking at society as a biological system, we have to make a cultural change from a philosophy of materialism to a philosophy of holism. A cultural change requires a change in our universities, our spiritual institutions, and our media.