Originally published at OpEdNews:

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 naïve 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.

Recently I glanced through a 2017 college textbook called “Principles of Economics” which deals with microeconomics and macroeconomics. Looking at the index and glossary, I was surprised that there was no mention of terms like “capitalism,” “socialism,” “Marxism,” and the “Labor Theory of Value.” Nor did I find anything about “Voluntary Simplicity,” which is what our nation needs if we consider the rest of the world where half of the world’s population lives on less than $5.50 a day. Instead, I found in the book a section entitled “Why Does Economic Growth Matter?” Even some Green New Deal proponents advocate economic growth, but we need a Green New Deal that encourages and convinces the rich to live more simply so others can simply live.

If it would require 4 Earths for everyone in the world to have the lifestyle of the average American, we should definitely examine the way we live and see the immorality of having such a huge gap between the rich and the poor. Instead of valuing materialism and conspicuous consumption, it would be better to value psychological self-awareness, an intellectual understanding of history, the expression of loving-kindness, and mindfulness meditation.

Comedian Jimmy Dore did a 16-minute video interview of Dr. Richard D. Wolff entitled “Marxist Economic Theory Easily Explained.” Professor Wolff states, “I would argue that many in Europe have figured out ways to limit the damage that capitalism has done. Jeff Bezos is worth 129 billion. If we took away half of his wealth, which would still make him one of the 10 richest people on the planet, we could solve the problems of college education in the United States. We could transform the continent of Africa and make them our friends for the next 150 years. There is no excuse for a society that produces that kind of inequality and then lets it just sit there.” Jimmy Dore then added, “It’s been estimated that to end homelessness in the United States it would cost 20 billion dollars. To end world hunger, it would cost 30 billion dollars. So he [Jeff Bezos] could end homelessness and world hunger. What kind of person amasses more wealth than any human in history, while the people who generate that income for him are poor and on food stamps? A megalomaniac. That’s who would do that.”

The two biggest threats to world peace are the United States government (which really is an empire) and the lifestyles of the wealthy in the wealthiest countries of the world. During the Age of Imperialism, the wealthy Western nations were in a race to carve up the Americas, Africa, and Asia. They were far more industrialized and had more powerful weapons. In their thinking, they thought they were superior to other peoples of the world, whom they considered to be subhuman or barbarians. They essentially believed that might makes right. The aristocratic elites exploited other nations as they exploited the workers in their own countries. Now we know who were the true barbarians. Now we understand much better why there is no peace on earth.

As a result of slavery (imagine that) and exploitation on a massive scale, the wealthy Western countries (with their more powerful weapons) got a big advantage over the underdeveloped countries, and this type of unfairness has continued to the present day. When corporations move their factories to underdeveloped countries and pay workers $3.00 an hour when workers from developed nations had been getting $30 an hour for doing the same work, how ethical is that?

If the Earth Constitution is adopted, each country will take care of its own internal affairs without the need for a military, and there are some good models for how a democratic nation can develop. A democratic world government must have a military or police force more powerful than any one nation. The police force can be trained to use nonviolent, conflict-resolution skills in every situation, and we can learn those skills too.

Many plant and animal species are dying at an increasing rate because of the way humans have been living on this planet. Eventually, the human species could destroy itself as well unless radical changes are made. Nations have wasted precious resources fighting against one other. So many individuals have toiled, suffered, and died when we really could have done things differently. The story of the human race has been a very sad tragedy because we have not yet found a way to live on this planet in a cooperative way.

True spirituality is the universal love for humanity, the Earth, and the divine ground of our being. That love must be institutionalized through democratic world law. The Earth Constitution is the best model available for democratic world law.

We can also promote the free tutoring, self-study, and group study of history. Few people have developed a love of history from our current schools, but there is joy and wisdom to be found in better understanding history. Many voters, with no understanding of history, get their information about the world only from watching or listening to the corporate-owned, mainstream media. I have been studying Western Civilization lately. When I read about all of the injustices and foolish wars that have caused so much suffering throughout history, it either makes me angry or feels like weeping, and I want to do something about it. I think it would empower others too if they could understand history better. We could form voluntary meetup.com groups, for example. From these local groups, we can find common ground and build consensus communities. However, some historians and think tanks value a capitalist more than a socialist perspective, but in our search for truth and in our interpersonal relationships, we should strive to be open, honest, vulnerable, even transparent. At personal, local, national, and international levels, we must strive to not have ulterior motives and devious intentions.

To the degree there is a gap between the rich and the poor within nations and among nations, there will be economic, political, social, and personal problems. Instead of the wealthiest workers earning a thousand or a hundred times more than the lowest-earning income, the gap can be lowered to a ratio of 10:1 on an international level. After that, we can ultimately strive for a ratio of 3:1, as we encourage more voluntary simplicity among the wealthy to promote the peace and harmony of all.

If it currently would take 4 earths for everyone in the world to have the lifestyle of the average American, and half of the world lives on less than $5.50 a day (which is almost $2,008 a year (365 x 5.50)–the highest expression of love and fairness would be to support radical egalitarianism on an international level.

If currently the world is spending almost 2 trillion dollars a year on weapons and war, imagine what it would be like if those resources could be reallocated to building self-determined, self-sufficient, and interdependent local communities all over the world. Imagine what it would be like if we started becoming concerned for the self-actualization of every person on the planet. But we cannot have nations that get away with controlling, dominating, and exploiting other nations for their exclusive gain and greed.

Glen T. Martin, the President of the World Constitution and Parliament Association, the organization that created the Earth Constitution recently did a book review of The End of Growth: Adapting to Our Economic Reality by Richard Heinberg, a Senior Fellow in residence at the Post Carbon Institute in California. Glen Martin expresses high praise for this book in that it explains why we can no longer think in terms of unlimited growth. However, Glen Martin states: “Richard Heinberg does not mention the industrial-military complex that has dominated the economics of the United States and most of the world since World War II. His book does not mention war or militarism or global state-sponsored terrorism in which the top-secret intelligence agencies of the major imperial nations set up false-flag bombings, assassinations, and sponsor proxy terror forces from ISIS to Al Qaeda in the interest of imperial power and domination (see, e.g., Engdahl 2016). Nor does this book mention nuclear weapons or the global development of other forms of weapons of mass destruction.” Here is a video interview of Richard Heinberg.

The 9 most egregious social sins that nations have committed are 1) Imperialism 2) Racism 3) Corporate Capitalism 4) Nationalism 5) Materialism 6) Patriarchalism 7) Anti-Environmentalism 8) Speciesism (species-ism) and 9) the Discrimination against the LGBTQ community.

In the 91-page booklet entitled A Global Security System: An Alternative to War (2017 Edition), which is published by WorldBeyondWar.org: A Global Movement to End All Wars, which was co-founded by David Swanson, there is “A Sampling of Other Peace Organizations on the World Wide Web” at the end of the booklet. Those 63 benevolent peace organizations and many others not listed must realize that enforceable democratic world law is the only way that we can make it all work together–to create lasting peace and everlasting love. It will be a big impetus for social change if World Beyond War will specifically advocate enforceable democratic world law and the Earth Constitution as the best model for it.

Authors Danny Haiphong, a weekly columnist for Black Agenda Report, and Roberto Sirvent have written a highly praised book entitled American Exceptionalism and American Innocence: A People’s History of Fake News–From the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror. In this interview with Rob Kall, Danny Haiphong states that the purpose of the book is to create an anti-war, anti-imperialist movement. Here Charles Dunaway interviews Haiphong about this book. Here David Swanson interviews Haiphong, and here Popular Resistance.org interviews Haiphong.

If a democratic world federal government can be established based on democratic world law, nations will still largely be responsible for their own internal affairs, but no nation will be allowed to arbitrarily control and exploit other nations for its own self-aggrandizement.

Many of our best political writers describe our problems very well, but what if we focused more on solutions, and what if we could agree on the best solutions? Imagine having democratic and ecological socialism on an international level based on a system and culture of democratic world law. It would be a revolution of love, a love revolution, a spiritual revolution, and we can have it. We can create it. The world needs it for the love of God.

We are one world, one earth, and one humanity. The sooner we realize that the better it will be. It may be that the Source Energy that created the universe can also be discovered at the core of our being–when we transcend the ego, all selfishness, and duality–an eternal fountain of love, joy, and bliss. When the Peace Movement ignites all over the world in support of the Earth Constitution, we will know that the end of much suffering is near. We can never create a utopia because there is never an end to love and spiritual growth. But we can create a world that feels like a utopia compared to what we are experiencing now.

For other articles on creating a model nation and a model world read “Socialism and Democratic World Law Will Promote the Self-Actualization of Everyone,” “The Most Democratic Way to Have a Constitutional Convention,” “If We Equally Divided the World’s Wealth,” New Culture, New Constitution, New Everything,” and “15 Proposals that Could Make Our Nation and the World a Better Place.”

Sources:

[1] Sherman, Dennis and Salisbury, Joyce (2011). The West in the World: A History of Western Civilization, fourth edition, p. 591.

[2] Ibid. pp. 353-354