Rebuilding True Security in an Age of Insecurity

by Vandana Shiva. This is an excerpt from the Economic Design dimension of Gaia Education’s Design for Sustainability curriculum.

Humanity seems to be in a free fall towards disaster. The ecological fabric of our existence is being torn apart, as the violence of corporate globalisation combines with the violence of war.

Alternatives to war, non-sustainability and social and economic injustice are becoming a survival imperative. These alternatives need to combine our making peace with the planet and our making peace among people from diverse cultures. One is not possible without the other.

Earth Democracy is based on creating living economies that protect life on Earth and provide basic needs and economic security to all. It is based on living democracy, which is inclusive. In Earth Democracy, economics, politics and society move from negative systems that benefit a few in the short run, to positive systems that ensure the fundamental right to life of all species.

Earth Democracy embodies principles that enable us to transcend the polarisation, divisions and exclusions that are pitting the economy against ecology, development against environment, people against the planet, and nations against one another in a new culture of fear and hate. It is symbolised in farms rejuvenating biodiversity, and species acting in mutuality to benefit one another. Earth Democracy re-contextualises humans as one member of the Earth family and diverse cultures in the mosaic of cultural diversity.

The separation of rights and responsibility is at the root of ecological devastation and gender and class inequality. Corporations that earn profits from the chemical industry, or from genetic pollution resulting from genetically engineered crops, do not have to bear the burden of that pollution. The social and ecological costs are externalised and borne by others who are excluded from decisions and from benefits.

Earth Democracy offers a potential for changing the way governments, intergovernmental organisations and corporations operate. It creates a new paradigm for global governance while empowering local communities. It creates the possibility of strengthening ecological security while improving economic security. And on the foundations of ecological and economic security it makes societies immune to the virus of hatred and fear. Earth Democracy offers a new way of seeing in which everything is not at war with everything else, but through which we can cooperate to create peace, sustainability and justice.

This is an excerpt from the Economic Design dimension of Gaia Education’s online course in Design for Sustainability. The course will start on 18 March 2019, so sign up now (registrations are open until Sunday, 24 March 2019)!

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Gaia Education is a leading-edge provider of sustainability education that promotes thriving communities within planetary boundaries.