- The impact of the ongoing process of transformation
on our economic system is bound to be profound.
- The new system, emerging from the ocean, the great equalizer,
and its principle of the Common Heritage of Mankind, would have to respond to
the needs of the age of the information revolution and the end of Eurocentrism.
It would have to embody, in one way or another, the following concepts:
(1) Holistic approach
Economics has social, political, environmental, cultural, and
ethical dimensions. Its focus must be the human being. Its goal: the welfare of
all.
(2) Decentralization, community-based co-management
The impact of high technology and the principles and methodologies
of modern management converge with the ideas and ideals of the non-Western world
views in their emphasis on communitarianism and a decentralized social economy,
as espoused by Gandhiism. This implies:
· resource saving through greater discipline on
the part of consumers, improving energy efficiency, and better organization of
the production and distribution system;
· a reduction in consumption standards through
"voluntary simplicity" and self-restraint;
· acceptance of substitutions between material and
non-material consumption: fewer goods and more services or less time spent in
market-oriented economic activities and more time allocated to non-economic
activities and/or small-scale environmentally benign material production for
self-consumption;
· reducing the demand for intra-urban transportation by
redesigning cities;
· reducing long-distance transportation of materials and
goods by better integration of local and regional economies.
(3) Equity
The goal of economics is not the greatest good for the greatest
number - which might leave 51 per cent of the population free to exploit the
remaining 49 - but the welfare of all. Implicit in the above is the basic
presumption of equal dignity of and respect for the life and welfare of every
individual. Translated into the sphere of economic policy, it entails top
priority for meeting the most basic material needs (water, food, shelter,
health, education) of everybody.
(4) Intellectual property
Intellectual property rights may have to be reviewed and revised
in the context of the economics of the information age and sustainable
development.
(5) Uncertainty
Decisions on socio-economic policy will have to be made in the
light of uncertainty inherent in the system. Uncertainty can be reduced, not
eliminated, through applying the precautionary principle and new concepts of
risk management as developed by contemporary insurance economists. It can
further be reduced by blending insights gained through improved scientific and
technological methodologies with those gained through ancient wisdom and
experience, in community-based co-management systems.
(6) Work
Work, as expression of self-development and fulfilment, is a basic
human right. Theories of the post-industrial society, and the ideals of other
cultures converge in distinguishing "work" from "paid
employment" and stressing the importance of "service." This
would imply:
· guaranteed minimum paid employment for
everyone, sufficient to assure the basic necessities of life: shelter, food,
health, and education;
· self-employment and "free enterprise" for the
free time left by the part-time employment, to increase income and generate
savings;
· a period of life to be devoted to unpaid service to the
community, thus enhancing the common heritage and repaying what the community
has provided at an earlier stage of life;
· such a scheme to be realized at the local community level,
on the basis of co-management.
(7) Wealth
Wealth and welfare are a combination of natural or physical and
biological, of man-made (cultural tools; goods and services) and of monetarized
(capital) phenomena; this holistic view reflects our social, economic and
environmental dimensions. Wealth is in stock not in flow. It is to be measured
by human development indicators, including economic, social, cultural, ethical
and environmental indicators:
· indicators are needed especially for
non-marketed and non-marketable goods and services;
· non-remunerated work, i.e., work not exchanged and work
exchanged, but not paid with money, must be included;
· deducted value, i.e., costs of man-made pollution and
over-exploitation of resources, must be taken into consideration; and
· uncertainties inherent in complex systems have to be taken
into account;
· indicators of vulnerability and indicators couched within
frameworks of probability should systematically be developed.
(8) Value
The value of goods is not their "exchange value"
("market value") but their "utilization value." The
longer their duration through inputs, paid or non-paid, of services such as
training, maintenance, repairing, rebuilding, recycling and disposing services,
the greater their value.
(9) Ownership
The seas and oceans and their resources are the Common Heritage of
Mankind;
· "Resources" means non-living,
living and genetic resources.
· Whether they are in areas under national jurisdiction or
in the high seas or in or under the International Sea-bed Area, they must be
managed sustainably, keeping in mind the needs of future generations; with
special consideration for the needs of poor countries and poor people, aiming at
the eradication of poverty. They are reserved for peaceful purposes, peace and
security being basic for sustainable development.
- The principle of the Common Heritage of Mankind thus is the
foundation of sustainable development, not only in the oceans, but globally. In
accordance with the cultures of the vast majority of humankind, its application
must be extended from the wealth of the oceans to wealth in general, not to be
"owned" by humankind, whether individually or collectively, but to
be held in trust, and to be administered on the basis of cooperation between
civil society and the institutions of governance, at local, national, regional,
and global levels.
(10) Internal/international revenues
taxation may be shared between municipal, national,
regional, and global levels of governance, in accordance with the levels of
services required.
- Gradually, a development tax might be levied on all commercial
uses of the global commons, starting with the oceans. (a) taxes might be levied
on activities generating deducted value, converging with the ethical postulate
of the prohibition of trade in weapons, drugs, etc.
(11) Adaptive non-linear network
The overall direction of the economy is determined by the
interaction of many dispersed units (human beings). The action of any one unit
depends on the state and actions of an unlimited number of other units; leading,
inevitably, to a system of multiple equilibria, thereby making impossible the
prediction of unique future states:
· the units are not hierarchically arranged and
all are free to follow their own way to the goal: the goal is one but the paths
are many;
The following of this path should lead to an economy which is:
· flexible, adaptive and creative;
· non-exploitative, so that assets and income get equitably
distributed;
· in harmony with the natural environment; and
· self-regulated, leading to restraint on unnecessary
consumption; culturally determined.
(12) Non-violence
The socio-economic system for sustainable development is based on
non-violence as applied to ownership, production, consumption, work, allocation,
distribution, and in reforming economic systems:
