Global Well-Being through Statesmanship

Statesmanship is a rare combination of wisdom and courage. Statesmanship requires the wisdom to envision a world as it can be, and the courage to make it happen. Statesmanship is what we must expect from all of our elected officials.

We must engage in political discourse based on intelligent, fact-based dialogue on the most important issues. A focus on statesmanship can lead to our increasing trust of elected officials, increased confidence in government organizations, increased bi-partisan cooperation, along with creative solutions for mutual gain, transcending conflict, reduced government waste, and reduced corruption.

We need to expect fair, simplified, and easily understood legislation that increases the well-being of all citizens.

A political environment based on statesmanship will allow us to address the grand challenges and focus on what matters. Working together we can achieve a world we might only dare to dream of. Statesmanship can move us toward global well-being.

Imagine a world where no one goes hungry and poverty and homeless is rapidly disappearing.

We all enjoy Improved health and fitness outcomes, including:  reduced alcoholism, reduced drug abuse, reduced addictions, reduced obesity and malnutrition, reduced occurrence of preventable diseases and poor health conditions, increased physical fitness. We enjoy increased prevention and treatment of mental illness, including: chronic stress, depression, and risk of suicide along with many other forms of mental illness. We all have access to a simplified, effective, and efficient universal healthcare system.

Statesmanship can deliver the wisdom and courage we need to increase employment opportunity, decrease national debt and personal debt, create and adopt a fair, simplified, and easily understood tax code, allow us to tax more of what we want less of, and attain increased income equality.

Shifting resources from the Department of Defense to a newly created Department of Peace can enable us to adopt a foreign policy based primarily on human rights. This can lead to reduced global conflict and reduced suffering worldwide as the entire world’s people gain access to clean-safe drinking water, proper nutrition, sanitation, medical care, and other human rights.

Enlightened foreign policy can lead to increased cooperation among nations and reduced terrorist threats, peaceful borders, and increased homeland security. Eventually democracy prevails over theocracy and totalitarianism, at home and abroad. This allows for decreasing arsenals of both conventional and nuclear weapons worldwide.

An energy policy moving rapidly toward sustainability allows us to reverse global warming trends and increase attention to environmental issues. Pollution is reduced, and we are able to increase conservation and preservation of natural resources, wilderness areas, forests, fisheries, biodiversity, and ecosystem services.

Stronger families lead to fewer divorces, reduced child abuse, reduced domestic violence, reduced sexual abuse. We recognize that contraception prevents abortion. Social Capital increases.

Improved education opportunities and outcomes lead to reduced illiteracy and innumeracy and increased graduation rates for High Schools, Colleges, Universities, and specialty training programs. People have better employment opportunities and more fulfilling lives as a result.

This improved social and political fabric leads to reduced gun violence, reduced gang violence, reduced organized crime, overall reduced crime and decreased need for incarceration. Legal justice aligns increasingly with moral justice.

Perhaps statesmanship can grant us the wisdom to envision our world as it can be and the courage to make it happen.

Earth at One Billion

After a difficult transition the earth finally stabilized at a population near one billion humans. Now we clearly see the benefits and wisdom of this smaller population. It has been many centuries since the earth’s population reached its peak of more than 12 billion people back in the year 2050. Despite the dismal predictions of Malthus at the turn of the nineteenth century, publication of The Population Bomb in 1968 and The Limits to Growth books in 1972 and 2004, we all got swept up promoting the economic growth and relentless consumption that financial systems have relied on for millennia.

But eventually it became clear that Malthus and his disciples got it right. Drought, famine, global warming, overcrowding, deforestation, hoarding, violent conflicts, and depletion of: fertile soil, fossil water, fossil fuels, and essential minerals made it undeniable that we had already exceed earth’s ecological limits to growth by the beginning of the 21^st century.  In addition economies at the personal, regional, national, and world levels were relying on increasing and crippling quantities of debt. The bubble finally burst, we finally got the message, and something had to be done. Enough!

Political, religious, business, and community leaders agreed to unequivocally advocate voluntary birth control. Many young couples went childless; others had at most one or two children. They spent more time with nieces, nephews, and neighbors. Adoptions, community care centers, and other social arrangements helped ease the loneliness during this difficult time. At the same time people were living longer so it took centuries for the population to decrease. Advances in genetic counseling provide more information for family planning. Now couples typically have two children, and the population is finally stable at a sustainable level.

Transition of the economy was equally essential and difficult. One key was a mental shift that allowed us to realize prosperity as flourishing—enjoying life more—rather than as opulence—buying more things. Eventually we began to see opulence and all of its excess as vulgar and not something to envy or aspire to. People learned to seek more enduring and authentic forms of gratification based on savoring possessions, events, and experiences that provide real and lasting value. A walk in the woods was soon enjoyed more than a trip to the theme park. Durable goods are now built to last by skilled crafts-people, and they are enjoyed for centuries.

Another key to transforming the economy was to fully internalize the various externalities that primitive accounting systems ignored. It had long been recognized that Gross Domestic Product was a narrow and inaccurate measure of productivity and value added. For example, the results of a fatal car accident perversely caused the GDP to increase because the costs to replace the damaged vehicles, hospital expenses, ongoing therapy, funeral expenses, and legal expenses are all counted positively, despite the tragedy they each represent. In addition it ignores the value of natural resources and ecosystem services. Eventually we were able to move to more comprehensive measures of human well-being, modeled after the Human Development Index, the Genuine Progress Indicator, measures of Gross National Happiness, and other measures that began to emerge early in the 21^st century.

Because there are now fewer people, each person enjoys a greater share of earth’s bounty. Most of the world has become a nature preserve for all of us to enjoy. Forests cover much of the land, providing habitats to preserve and enhance biodiversity, sequestering carbon, and generating fertile soil. Only the most suitable arable land is used for agriculture, relying on rain water for irrigation and compost for nutrients. The oceans are once again teeming with fully grown fish in every species not yet extinct. Those that are caught represent only a tiny sustainable fraction of those that live and grow. Overfishing has become only a distant and painful memory.

As there were fewer people, the dignity intrinsic in each person became more fully recognized. It was no longer tolerable to watch as a billion people went without clean, safe drinking water, three billion were malnourished, and violent conflicts killed millions. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights finally took hold world-wide, and the rights of each person eventually prevailed over the last strongholds of tyranny.

Because of this bounty starvation has been eliminated, along with most resource conflicts. Peace finally prevails across the earth, eliminating the need for militaries, defense contractors, and so many other defensive drains on our time, energy, and natural resources. Many other jobs that did not add value have been phased out. The tobacco industry finally dwindled away as people became better informed of the dangers of tobacco use. Simplified tax codes eliminated the need for tax accountants, tax lawyers, and the entire tax interpretation industry. Simpler and more just laws reduced the need for lawyers, and reduced the number of people incarcerated. This reduced the size of prisons and the number of police and prison guards needed.

People only need to work two or three days per week to earn the income required to support their families. Most careers are in farming, engineering, teaching, art, and entertainment, in addition to the many hands-on trade and service jobs. Most of us enjoy a healthy balance between work and leisure time, while a few still choose all leisure or all work.

People eat healthier food and live healthier lives—spending more time exercising as a natural part of each day and encountering less stress. This leads to greater fitness and fewer health-related problems, thereby reducing health-care costs.

Education has evolved to become human-centered. We use our educations everyday to live better lives and improve our well-being. Illiteracy disappeared centuries ago.  Open education platforms modeled after Wikiversity and the Khan Academy make vast collections of learning resources freely accessible and are now the widespread norm. Life skills such as emotional competency essential to improving human interactions are now core elements in typical curricula. Developing a robust theory of knowledge allows us to carefully decide what to believe and what to dismiss. Educational institutions have successfully made the transition from imparting knowledge to promoting wisdom. People learn more than facts, they learn what is most important in life, how to become more creative, and how to make decisions that improve their well-being. We are finally learning how to cope with abundance.

The major cities that were so overcrowded at the time of peak population continue to be where most people choose to live. However now that fewer people share the space, housing, and cultural resources of a huge city, there is plenty for everyone to enjoy. Renewed emphasis on placemaking has transformed the cities into safe, comfortable, and intriguing living spaces. Some cities located in earthquake zones were abandoned rather than rebuilt after earthquakes occurred. Of course, many people still choose to live in the surrounding suburbs, and in rural areas. The shorter work week reduces commuting time and expense. Also, high speed rail lines connect each of the major cities allowing safe, fast, comfortable, and economical travel.

Quality of life is finally triumphing over incessant growth.  Virtue is finally prevailing over vice. Imagine!

Note: This fictional story was written for the Wikiversity course "Limits to Growth" to provoke thinking about one possible long-term outcome.