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Global Dialogue 2007
Global Dialogue 2007: building global communities for all life
theme Theme of Global Dialogue 2007: building global communities for all life
Building global communities for all life Global Dialogue 2007: building global communities for all life

Eradicating poverty

Home Up Contents Genetically modified food  ] Eradicating poverty  ] Agricultural needs  ] Sustainable agriculture  ] Food supplies  ]


In practical sense, agriculture cannot feed a human population that has grown beyond the capacity limit. We must ask ourselves whether we can stop the growth by means that are voluntary and benign, or whether the eventual environmental restraint will be out of our hands. At some questionable time in our future we will find that our soil will no longer have the nutrients it needs to produce quality food.




We need to form a global ministry dealing only about agriculture and the protection of our soils. All nations will be part of the ministry. We have to design systems of food production that meet our own needs, and also leave room for these other lifeforms we want to take along with us. Western agriculture is designed in the end to maximize profit. As a primordial human right, the prime concern of the human species is to feed people. Therefore we have to do things differently. We will have to produce less livestock as we effectively double the population we need to feed: ourselves, plus the livestock that is supposed to be feeding us. We also have to apportion the land surface of the whole world more efficiently, using some for highhly intensive food production (which makes use of less land), some for extensive agriculture (combining food production with wildlife conservation) and designing some specifically as wilderness areas with global corridors between them.
The Global Community believes all citizens have the right to share the wealth in the world. Foreign investment and the trade agreement must protect and improve social and environmental rights, not just the economy. A global sustainable development would mean finding a sound balance among the interactions designed to create a healthy economic growth, preserve environmental quality, make a wise use of our resources, and enhance social benefits. Free trade cannot proceed at the expense of the environment, labour rights, human rights and the sovereignty of a nation. Free trade will lead to an increase in poverty by giving investor rights priority over government decision-making. Employers will be looking for more concessions from workers. Small businesses will find it more difficult to grow and compete against large corporations.


The debt of developing countries was really a global tax developed countries had to pay to developing countries The Earth Court of Justice is required to rule that the debt of the poor nations or 'developing nations' to the rich nations was in actuality a form of global tax and therefore the poor or 'developing' nations dont have to pay it back. In fact poor nations should expect way more money as tax by the rich nations and not as loans. The state of the world today is the result of a specific set of interlocking institutions: the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO. These institutions are designed to generate massive wealth for the few and poverty for the rest. The same people who make the decisions in government and corporation make the profit. They create a tight concentration of power. Together they are a form of anti-government whose only goal is profit. The IMF, through Structural Adjustment Programs, now directly runs the economies of over 70 countries. That means that about 1000 economists and bureaucrats control the economic policies for 1.4 billion people in these countries. That is a form of anti-government. The people that profit most from the global economy are white people. The people who are most oppressed by the global economy are people of colour. Racism and sexism have become the norm. The entire planet is in a state of low intensity civil war.The ruling elite profit off of the exploitation of the rest of the world. The Earth Community Organization was looking for a method of raising global taxes, of redistributing incomes to the poorest communities, of providing debt-free technical assistance to non-industrial and developing countries to help them out of poverty and to meet environmental and social standards, but there it was all along right on our eyes. The Earth Court of Justice will be asked to decide on the debt be changed into an actual tax to be paid by the rich nations to the poor nations, and to decide on the amount of tax to be paid. Developing nations will then be able to start rebuilding their communities as per the Scale of Human and Earth Rights and the Charter of the Global Community. They will not have to satisfy the economic needs and wishes of the rich nations. The Earth Court of Justice will also be asked to rule illegal the activities of the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO unless they become a part of a greater whole such as the Earth Ministry of Financial Institutions, a part of the future the Global Community. These institutions will be controlled by the greater whole.

A democratically planned global economy is needed to eradicate poverty in the world. Implemented through the Global Community with built-in mechanisms for optimum input and oversight guaranteed to all member-states, a democratically planned global economy offers the Global Community a practicable starting point for achieving:

(a)     a healthful, sustainable environment for every global community citizen,
(b)     universal health care, publicly supported,
(c)     education for all based upon individual capability,
(d)     creative/productive employment for every global community citizen, and
(e)     post-retirement security.


This effort will lead over time to an escalation of human values and symbiotical relationships transcending money centered economics.

We need to form a global ministry dealing only about agriculture and the protection of our soils. All nations will be part of the ministry. We have to design systems of food production that meet our own needs, and also leave room for these other lifeforms we want to take along with us. Western agriculture is designed in the end to maximize profit. As a primordial human right, the prime concern of the human species is to feed people. Therefore we have to do things differently. We will have to produce less livestock as we effectively double the population we need to feed: ourselves, plus the livestock that is supposed to be feeding us. We also have to apportion the land surface of the whole world more efficiently, using some for highhly intensive food production (which makes use of less land), some for extensive agriculture (combining food production with wildlife conservation) and designing some specifically as wilderness areas with global corridors between them.

In general, populations of all lifeforms grow exponentially that is by a steady proportion of whatever was there before. When there is no practical limit on resource then populations usually grow maximally and the only limit is that of the reproductive capacity of the female animal. About 10,000 years ago, human beings were obliged to commit themselves more or less fully to agriculture and the human population was 5 to 10 million. By the time of Christ, after only 8,000 years of large-scale agriculture, the human population was 100 to 300 million. After this time, the exponential growth of the population entered its rapid phase. The billion mark was passed by 1800 A.D. By year 2000, the human population exceeded 6 billion. Thus agriculture allowed a thousand-fold increase in numbers over a period of 10,000 years.

In practical sense, agriculture cannot feed a human population that has grown beyond the capacity limit. We must ask ourselves whether we can stop the growth by means that are voluntary and benign, or whether the eventual environmental restraint will be out of our hands. At some questionable time in our future we will find that our soil will no longer have the nutrients it needs to produce quality food. For some time we may counter this problem by fresh weathering of rock. Not for long! The loss of lifeforms on Earth will be permanent.

Obviously something has to be done! The Global Community proposes a tight global policy, benignly implemented, or it will be very nasty indeed. In practice, a human population of 10 to 12 billion would be too uncomfortably high and would add a high strain on world resources. What kind of world population would be reasonable? What goal should we aim at? A population should be small enough to be sustainable indefinitely and still allow plenty of leeway for ourselves and other lifeforms. It should also be large enough to allow the formation of healthy civilizations. We propose a world population of 500 million. The policy to apply is for every family to have only one or two children. It would take a thousand years to reach our goal of a population of 500 million.

The Global Community proposes a Green Tax Shift Policy Approach to financing local-to-global public goods. There is a troublesome and painful contradiction in the lives of many of us who are working for peace, justice, poverty eradication, debt cancellation and sustainable development. While our hearts and minds focus on building a better world for everyone, each day we hand over fistfuls of dollars to build weapons of mass destruction, fuel dangerous, dirty and polluting technologies, and subsidize huge conglomerates which concentrate the wealth of the world in the control of the few. But together we can end tax tyranny and align our visions and values with how we finance our governments.

Taxation not only raises money to fund government services, it also reflects the overall value system of a society. The goal of green tax policy is to create a system of public finance which strengthens and maximize incentives for:

*     Fair distribution of wealth
*     Environmental protection
*     Basic needs production
*     Provision of adequate government services
*     Peaceful resolution of territorial conflicts

Green tax reform makes a clear distinction between private property and common property. Private property is that which is created by labor. Common property is that which is provided by nature. Green tax policy removes taxes from wages and other private property and increases taxes and user fees on common property. Reducing taxes on labor increases purchasing capacity, reducing taxes on capital encourages efficiency. Shifting taxes to land and resources curbs speculation and private profiteering in our common property and is a practical way to conserve and fairly share the Earth.

Captured in brief soundbites, tax waste, not work; tax bads, not goods; pay for what you take, not what you make; and polluter pays become tax shift principles readily translated into voter friendly policy recommendations with broadbased political support.

Green tax policy CUTS taxes on:

*     Wages and earned income
*     Productive and sustainable capital
*     Sales, especially for basic necessities
*     Homes and other buildings

Green tax policy INCREASES taxes and fees on:

*     Land sites according to land value
*     Lands used for timber, grazing, mining
*     Emissions into air, water, or soil
*     Ocean and freshwater resources
*     Electromagnetic spectrum
*     Satellite orbital zones
*     Oil and minerals

Green tax policy seeks to ELIMINATE subsidies environmentally or socially harmful, unnecessary, or inequitable. Slated for drastic reduction or complete removal are subsidies for:

*     Energy production
*     Resource extraction
*     Commerce and industry
*     Agriculture and forestry
*     Weapons of mass destruction

The Global Community is in favour of the introduction of a specific type of tobin tax as a powerful instrument of the promotion of sustainable development, both directly as well as indirectly. Indirectly, it can discourage financial speculation and currency crises with their devastating effects on countries; directly, as a tax, the proceeds of it can be used as an alternative source of sustainable development finance in order to promote the establishment of international public goods. The original Tobin tax proposal can be made into a feasible instrument by engineering it as a two-tier tax (the so-called Spahn version of the Tobin tax), with tax collection through the international settlements system.

The Global Community was looking for a method of raising global taxes, of redistributing incomes to the poorest communities, of providing debt-free technical assistance to non-industrial and developing countries to help them out of poverty and to meet environmental and social standards, but there it was all along right on our eyes. The Earth Court of Justice will be asked to decide on the debt be changed into an actual tax to be paid by the rich nations to the poor nations, and to decide on the amount of tax to be paid. Developing nations will then be able to start rebuilding their communities as per the Scale of Human and Earth Rights and the Charter of the Global Community. They will not have to satisfy the economic needs and wishes of the rich nations. The Earth Court of Justice will also be asked to rule illegal the activities of the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO unless they become a part of a greater whole such as the Earth Ministry of Financial Institutions, a part of the future the Global Community. These institutions will be controlled by the greater whole.

 

 

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