Our Future (a Preview)
The following is a preview of what we could expect in the future if we were to implement my ideas for a better and more sustainable future.
In the United States Declaration of Independence, our forefathers declared our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Unfortunately, we have never truly achieved these rights and have never really extended them to other living things. To build a better and more sustainable future, we will need to live by a philosophy that respects the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all current and future living things. In addition, we will need to balance these rights with an appropriate set of obligations that will help to ensure that we can protect and preserve our rights.
Our future would be built on a solid foundation of respect, justice for all, and a balance of freedoms and obligations. If we respect the rights of all other individuals and all other living things to live their chosen lifestyles, then we would have the freedom to work towards living our chosen lifestyles. Our society would ensure that we had the opportunity to make the most of our lives and that we would have the obligation to ensure that society protected and preserved those opportunities for everyone and for all other living things. In this way, the average person could have far more freedoms and options by taking on just a few new obligations and responsibilities.
A foundation for these rights and obligations would come from the basic rules that I previously described. These were "do no undue harm", "protect everything from undue harm", and "allow all living things to live their lives their way".
Control of our governments and our representatives would be returned to the people through a new electoral process. All candidates for office would be independent and would run to represent all their constituents instead of a political party. Most campaign funding would come from the government. All candidates would be invited to all events and would have an equal opportunity to participate and to speak. Private groups and individuals could sponsor events, but only when all eligible candidates are invited and equally supported.
Our representatives would finally work for the betterment of their communities and all their constituents and would not be beholden to nor give preferential treatment to the wealthy, to big business or to special interest groups. Our representatives would take on more of an oversight role, where they would ensure that our governments were functioning for the benefit of all citizens, and they would use more of their time to keep us informed and to listen to our ideas and concerns rather than doing fund raising.
Our constitutions and laws would be rewritten, as needed, to protect the rights of all citizens and all living things. Freedom and justice would be respected not only for those individuals who are in the majority, but also for those individuals who are in the minority. If we were not doing undue harm to others or to our environment, then our governments would not allow anyone to dictate what we could or could not do.
Except for those things that need to be done at the federal or state level, all programs and tax revenues would be moved back to the local governments and their citizens. Things that did not need to be done by the federal government would be moved back to the state governments. Things that did not need to be done by the state government would be moved back to the local community governments. Things that did not need to be done by the local governments would be moved back to individual citizens.
With smaller governments, we citizens would have lower tax bills and would be able to spend more of our money on the things that mattered to us instead of having the government decide how to spend our money. With communities keeping more of their local tax revenue, the communities would be able to decide where the money needed to go instead of being told by the state and federal governments how much money they could get back and what they could spend their money on.
Our governments would ensure that we had an equal opportunity to learn and to work to earn a living and to contribute to the strength of our economy. Everyone who was willing and able to work could get a job that would ensure they could earn at least enough to survive until they were able to find better employment. This would be accomplished with changes to various regulations and incentives that would make it easier and more economical for businesses to spread their work to more workers who would then be able to at least earn a living wage.
Since businesses would have incentives to spread the workload to more workers, fewer workers would lose their jobs in tough economic times. The affected workers would simply work fewer hours and earn a little less until the economic conditions improved. In this way, we could all continue to earn at least enough to take care of our basic needs, which would reduce the need for unemployment insurance and welfare.
Our economy would function more smoothly. Capitalism would continue to give everyone an opportunity to express their entrepreneurial spirit and competition would continue to increase efficiency. Our governments would change laws, regulations and incentives that would make it easier for businesses and communities to work together for the benefit of everyone, and that better protect our resources and the environment.
Various laws, regulations and incentives would be in place to make it more economical to produce goods and services locally instead of importing them from, or outsourcing them to, other countries. One of the main incentives would come from requiring that all goods and services consumed locally would need to have been produced following the same laws and regulations that apply to goods and services produced in the United States. An importer would need to pay an appropriate penalty for any goods or services they imported that were not produced in accordance with our laws and regulations.
With the right mix of laws, regulations and incentives in place, our trade deficit could be eliminated, and we could even start to have a surplus. Our economy would also be more resilient and less dependent on the world economy, which would allow us to improve our working conditions and environment without fear of pushing more jobs overseas.
The measure of success for our economy would shift from our GDP (Gross Domestic Product) to a measure of our health and happiness. Therefore, we would no longer need to encourage excessive consumer spending, which mainly just benefits big business and the wealthy while keeping many of us poor. Instead, we would concentrate on making life better, based on what each of us wanted to get out of our lives.
In addition, more goods and services would be produced locally, more work would be done locally, and more individuals would be employed. This should allow and encourage individuals, families and communities to reduce their waste and debt. This in turn would lead to more individuals having a better quality of life where they could have more free time, and there would be less crime, less pollution and less stress.
There would be changes to our zoning and tax laws to ensure better land management. A realignment of our real estate taxes and building codes would direct development towards higher density mixed use community centers. These changes would promote more efficient placement of our homes, offices, stores, entertainment establishments, parks, schools and other things so that our communities would be more pedestrian friendly.
Better community planning would also guide development towards providing and balancing the residential and business environments to ensure that each of our communities made more of the things needed by its citizens locally. In essence, each community would be much more self-sufficient and self-sustaining, at least where it comes to the basic needs of its citizens. With a balanced, diverse and self-sufficient and self-sustaining economy within the community, the local economy would be able to stay strong, even in the worst of global economic times.
With more things in each community available within easy walking and biking distance, there would be far less need to commute long distances. When someone did need to travel, it would be cheaper and more convenient to use mass transit instead of a car. With a new monorail system, it would be even quicker to get to all the other communities in the region and to many places that were further away. This would lead to greatly reduced transportation costs for everyone and a correspondingly big reduction in everyone’s cost of living.
We will shift towards all renewable resources. We will be using mostly wind, solar, thermal and other forms of renewable energy that is captured, stored and used within the community. Everything will be recycled. All biological material will be composted for use as fertilizer in local farms. All other material will be used to make other products or converted back into the raw materials that can be used to make new products.
If all the community’s resources were renewable, then the cost of everything would boil down directly to the cost of labor. This means that the community and its citizens can become wealthier simply by applying the right combination of getting the right education, working more hours or working more efficiently. If the community’s citizens are willing to put in the time and energy needed to work on some given project, then the community would always be able to afford to do that given project.
As part of the shift towards higher density, and more self-sufficient and self-sustaining communities, we could set aside more land to ensure that there was sufficient open space for the local plants and animals. These open spaces would be connected to the open spaces of nearby communities so that plants and animals would have a large enough ecosystem within which to thrive.
We would also simplify many aspects of our lives. We would streamline and simplify our tax laws so that most individuals, groups and businesses could easily determine what taxes they owed and more easily pay them. In addition, tax rates would be fairer and any remaining tax deductions would apply more equitably to both low and high wage earners. We would also combine and coordinate all regulatory and compliance requirements, so that individuals, groups and businesses could go to one place to take care of all their interactions with all levels of government for any purpose.
Since we want to allow all of us to live our lives in accordance with our own beliefs, we would make all victimless crimes legal. Of course, the proper controls would be put in place to ensure that no one’s actions would cause undue harm to anyone else. This would help reduce the crime rate and allow law enforcement to concentrate on the crimes that did undue harm.
Our courts would also stop excluding evidence based on technicalities, so that we could convict criminals for their crimes. Our prisons would be reorganized to put more effort into rehabilitation, so that inmates would learn how to be productive members of society instead of how to survive in a violent criminal environment. The result would be safer communities where more individuals could live and work together in harmony.
Political Issues -
Introduction to the Political Issues affecting Our Future Path.
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