Global Challenges & Opportunities:

Strategy for the 21st Century

Search for an Alternative Paradigm to address the

Multi-dimensional Global Crisis
March 7, 2013 WAAS Trieste Forum 1
Characteristics of Reliable Knowing

Evolutionary

Constructive Value-based
& &
Creative Ethical

Human-
Unifies Centered
Objective Knowledge Total
& &
Subjective Integral
views

Powerful Responsible
& &
Effective Accountable
2
Human-centered Knowledge

Peace &
Security

Freedom,
Creativity Justice, Social
Equality

Human Welfare
& Well-being
Economic
Knowledge Security &
Prosperity

Ecological
Sustainability

3
Comprehensive Perspective & Solutions
Political

Ecological Legal

Technological Economic

Psychological Social

Cultural
4
Whole World Perspective

All
Nations

All Fields
&
Whole All
Human
Activities
World Needs

All
People

5
 Program Framework

Integral
Knowledge

Global Sustainable
Governance Development

Human
Welfare

6
WAAS
Program
Themes New Economic Theory
• Global Employment
• Money & Finance
• Knowledge-based Services
• Economic Value & Measures

Human Capital
Global Governance
• Education
• Democratic Values & Culture • Health, Welfare & Aging
• Human Rights • Social Organization & Process
• Global Rule of Law
• Human Sovereignty Human • Society as Network
• Aspirations, Values, Culture

Security &
Welfare
Individuality
Peace & Security •Pioneers & Leaders
• Revolution in Human Affairs •Creativity & Discovery
• Conflict Resolution •Recognizing Genius
• Nuclear Disarmament Ecology •Mind & Rationality
• Global Referendum
•Anthropocene
•Revaluing Nature
•Energy Alternatives
•Climate Management

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 Key Questions
1. What are the major global challenges & opportunities?
2. What are the central factors contributing to them?
3. What are the core ideas & values on which the new
paradigm should be based?
4. What are the key strategies for effecting change?
5. What steps need to be taken to move from conception
to implementation?

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 Global Challenges
• Financial instability
• Rising levels of unemployment
• Persistent poverty
• Ecological imbalances
• Widening Inequality
• Nuclear proliferation
• Social tensions, unrest & terrorism

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 Some Key Causes
• Rapid globalization in the absence of effective
democratic institutions and legal framework for
global governance
• Outdated economic theory & measures
• Unregulated financial speculation diverting capital from
the real economy & employment
• Domination of national governments by money power
• Inadequate capacity and quality of global educational
system
• Unregulated wasteful exploitation of natural resources
• Persistence of competitive national security paradigm
• Refusal of the P5 to honor commitments under NPT

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 Core Ideas
1. Ideas have immense power to change the world.
2. Global challenges are interdependent and have common roots.
3. Human Capital is the most precious, unlimited resource.
4. Human security, welfare and well-being are the primary goals of economy –
not growth for growth sake.
5. Regulation is essential for freedom.
6. Employment is the economic equivalent of the right to vote.
7. Economic value should reflect human economic welfare.
8. Financial markets must serve the real economy.
9. Economic theory must recognize the centrality of knowledge-based systems
delivery services over extended period of time.
10. Money, markets and technology are human creations intended to serve, not
dominate or enslave, humanity.
11. Economy and polity are subsets of society – all economy is Political Economy.
12. Money is a social organization that capitalizes trust, not a material thing.
13. Uncertainty is the source of unlimited social creative potential.
14. Solutions must reconcile Freedom & equality, the rights of the individual with
the rights of collective.
15. Sovereignty must take into account the rights of the human collective. 11
 Core Ideas -- 2
16. Nuclear weapons are a crime against humanity.
17. Democracy must evolve from plutocracy to real democracy.
18. International institutions must be democratized.
19. Society is an organization of unlimited power for accomplishment.
20. The pioneering individuals are the catalysts for social change.
21. Development is the result of social, political, & legal processes.
22. Education is the prime instrument of conscious social evolution
23. Revolution of rising expectations is a driving force for social change.
24. Law and policy are codifications of the public conscience.
25. The origin of law is micro-level changes in human attitudes & actions.
26. Global security must move from competitive to cooperative paradigm
27. Problems are opportunities.
28. Economic value must reflect the real value of natural resources.
29. War can and must be abolished.
30. We must recognize the limits of Rationality both in principle and practice.
31. An umbrella group of committed organizations can change the world.

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 Core Strategies
1. Recognition of employment as a fundamental human right
2. Taxation to reduce inequalities & redirect resources from
speculation to real economy and employment generation
3. Global referendum
4. Appropriate valuation, pricing & taxation of natural resources
5. Global on-line educational and vocational training system
6. Human welfare-based economic measures to replace GDP
7. Establish human sovereignty as principle of international law
8. ICJ to declare total ban on nuclear weapons
9. Democratization of the UN
10. Widest possible extension of insurance coverage
11. Issuance of world currency & complementary currencies

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 Potential Partner Organizations
• Club of Rome – NET and Ecology
• UNESCO – Human Capital
• ELN & Pugwash – Peace & Security
• ILO – Employment
• EU – NET and Employment
• World Futures Council – comprehensive
perspective

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 Implementation Process
1. Define the crises and the opportunities.
2. Formulate the core ideas and values on which the new
paradigm should be based.
3. Identify the key strategies for effecting change.
4. Establish an umbrella group of like-minded partnering
organizations.
5. Develop an implementation plan.
6. Disseminate master plan demonstrating that a
comprehensive approach can resolve all existing problems.
7. Launch a global program of public education on the issues
and solutions.
8. Conduct a global referendum to build political support.
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 Initial Steps
• Form core umbrella group of like-minded organizations
• Prepare & disseminate master plan demonstrating that a
comprehensive approach can resolve all existing problems
• Launch a global program of public education on the issues and
solutions
• Organize a global referendum on core strategies
• Review of 1996 ICJ opinion on nuclear weapons

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