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It Will Take More Than Socialism and Democratic World Law to Save the World
The third component necessary to save the world is a spiritual revolution. And this is the most important component of all: it will show us the way to find joy and purpose in life.
If we were utterly baffled and had no idea how to save the world that would be the worst case scenario. But if we know what the world needs, there is much consolation in knowing that because even if it may take several generations to convince enough people to do the right things, we can at least know we're going in the right direction. Of course, we may not have several generations to prevent the world's destruction. With the love of Jesus and the serenity of Buddha, we can find joy within no matter how bad the world gets, but we have to do more than just save our souls. We have to save the world, and we each have a special role to play.
Capitalism and our major world religions have focused too much on individualism. We need more than the individualized compassion of Jesus or the serenity found in Buddhism. We also need the collective and social visions of people like Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., and, of course, you know Einstein was a Socialist. More than emphasizing rules and prayers and dependence on a whimsical God who is separate and distinct from the world--our religions and spiritual practices could focus on our taking responsibility for our thoughts, habits, attitudes, and behaviors--while taking into consideration the modern discoveries about psychology, the unconscious, ego-defense mechanisms like the repression of anger, mindfulness meditation, and the importance of having good intentions.
When the tables were turned and the social order was reversed during the French Revolution in 1789, there was an equal amount of treachery and savagery. The French Revolution was spurred and ignited by the bourgeoisie, the capitalist middle class, and then the working class joined them in the struggle against the monarchy and the aristocracy, supported by the Church, especially its higher clergy. The dissidents could never agree on anything. They even beheaded former associates. Certainly it was no moral revolution. Among the confusion, a strong man, Napoleon, emerges, who takes the offensive attacking other nations that were also attacking him. Napoleon even tries to create an empire. But the conservative nations unite against Napoleon and return things back to "normal" in Europe with the Congress of Vienna in 1815. There were other social revolts in 1848 and 1849, but the forces of conservatism were able to squelch those attempts as well.
Dennis Sherman and Joyce Salisbury are the authors of a college textbook The West in the World: A History of Western Civilization. On page 591, they write, "[Karl] Marx described how human societies in each historical era became divided into the 'haves' and the 'have-nots.' The haves owned the means of economic production--in nineteenth-century Britain, for example, the industrial capitalists who owned the machines and factories. They also controlled the state and the ideas that dominated their societies. The have-nots were the exploited laborers--for example, Britain's industrial working class. Each side consisted of classes of people with opposing interests. As Marx wrote, '[T]he history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle.' At a certain point, economic and social change would bring these class struggles to a revolutionary crisis. The French Revolution, he [Marx] explained, was an example of one of those conflicts coming to a violent head, as the bourgeoisie (the middle-class capitalists) overcame the aristocracy (the feudal landlords)." [1]
There have been other attempts to reverse the social order throughout European history. See John Ball and the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, the Levelers' movement, and John Wyclif's followers (the Lollards). One page 353, Sherman and Salisbury indicate in their book,"Many poor rallied to [Martin] Luther's banner of religious reform, and this support took a particularly violent form in Germany. Spurred on by fiery preachers, peasants who suffered from hunger, inflation, and skyrocketing manorial dues made Luther's attack on religious abuses part of their revolutionary program." A few lines later on p. 354 they continue, "In 1524, a violent peasant war broke out. As the peasants took up arms and stormed manor houses, they called for support from Luther's religious reformers. However, Luther was no John Ball (the religious leader who had led the peasant revolt in England in 1381). He advocated religious reform, not social revolution, for he believed the Bible called for people to obey secular rulers. Appalled by the violence in the countryside, Luther wrote a treatise called 'Against the Robbing and Murdering Hordes of Peasants,' in which he reprimanded peasants for defying legitimate government. He also urged those in power to 'smite, slay and stab' rebellious peasants, but the nobility needed no urging from Luther to protect their privileges. The rebellion was brutally suppressed--more than 100,000 peasants were killed." [2]
In Marx's surplus theory of value, the working class are those who create much wealth, the surplus, but they are only paid a small fraction of the enormous wealth they create because the capitalists expropriate the rest and pay the workers the lowest wages possible to make a higher profit for themselves. That's how capitalism works. But if we had a system of workplace democracy, the workers could help make the company decisions about everything--one person, one vote. The workers would not choose to pollute the place where they live or move the business overseas.
Now some socialists have had a materialist conception of everything, including economics and history. But the merging of science and spirituality is showing evidence that there is life after death based on the people who have had Near Death Experiences (NDE) and Out of Body experiences (OBE). Instead of going to either heaven or hell, the idea of reincarnation and the law of karma that we reap what we sow makes more sense if we have a loving God than spending eternity in a fiery furnace for the mistakes of one lifetime. A strict materialist would say that only a brain can create consciousness, but others are arguing that we choose each reincarnation with a specific mission to accomplish before we are born. They are providing evidence that consciousness can be temporarily separated from the body and that we can contact loved ones who have gone to the other side. Here are some interesting websites in a document I created called " Science, Spirituality, and the New Physics."
According to this 2013 Socialist Worker article about how the national vegan population is increasing rapidly it states, "As Dr. Steve Best points out, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels 'lumped animal welfarists, vegetarians, and anti-vivisectionists into the same petite-bourgeoisie category comprised of charity organizers, temperance fanatics, and naà ¯ve reformists.' Leon Trotsky railed against those opposed to revolutionary violence, scornfully describing their ideology as "vegetarian-Quaker prattle." On the contrary, there are ethical, ecological, and health reasons for being a vegan in this 21st century, and there is power in love, forgiveness, and nonviolence.
In an article entitled "World Order and the Rule of Law: From Disorder, No Order Can Emerge, " Glen T. Martin, President of the World Constitution and Parliament Association states, "The system of so-called sovereign nations (interfaced with their multinational corporations) is really a fragmented system of disorder." On page 4 he states, "Because there is no democratically legislated enforceable law for our planet itself (divided as it is into some 193 sovereign entities recognizing no effective law above themselves and little individual accountability for agreements and treaties) there is also no moral dimension of reasoned order that obtains at the global level, only chaos, fragmentation, and naked power relationships." He also states, "Abstract ideals, like those embodied in the UN Declaration of Human Rights, cannot create a decent world order. These moral principles must be embodied concretely within enforceable world law."
It might have been a good thing for various ethnic groups to develop a sense of nationalist identity against various forces of oppression that they contended with in earlier times. But since emerging nations have competed in a race to dominate and control, to trick and take advantage of one another, it has not gone well. Some nations have even tried to become empires, which is not what a democratic world needs. Having two world wars in roughly the last one hundred years is a sign that we have not made progress yet on our Social Progress Report Card.
Creating the United Nations was a beautiful idea, but it was not set up democratically because the most powerful nations gave themselves special privileges, considering the way the Security Council is set up. But it appears the Earth Constitution, on the other hand, is more democratic in every way. It was created by the World Constitution and Parliament Association. It is the best model available for a democratic world federal government based on enforceable international law. The current discoveries, recommendations, and decisions of the United Nations are not enforced, which makes them to be only idealistic hopes and dreams.
If we do not create democratic world federal government based on democratic world law, we will probably become more controlled by a top down, undemocratic fascist-type New World Order by those who make up the military-industrial establishment, the one percent, the Deep State, and the Shadow Government--those who now control governments and the mainstream corporate media. The first choice gives me hope, but the latter scenario makes me feel hopeless.
Laissez-faire capitalism has degenerated into corporate, transnational, casino capitalism, even fascism. Any totalitarian government of the present or past that has considered itself socialist or communist is not worthy of those names because true socialism or communism will always be democratic. Capitalism is based on production for private profit, and it is therefore inconceivable to have a compassionate capitalism. But a compassionate, democratic, egalitarian, and ecological socialism is our best choice if we consider the needs of the world, the Earth, and ourselves. We have to do more than just reverse the social order. We must create a spiritual revolution--a win-win situation for everyone. Let us seek democratic unity in diversity on a global level.
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