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MORAL ECONOMY PROJECT Overview of Book Outreach and Promotion Strategic Plan (2008-2010)
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May 18th, 2008 - 07:01:43 |
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by Geoff Garver, MEP team manager May 2008
The Quaker Institute of the Future (QIF) launched the Moral Economy Project (MEP) in 2005 to address Friends\' concerns about the human prospect in a world of unbridled growth and increasing ecological degradation. The central effort of MEP has been the drafting of a book, Right Relationship: Building a Whole Earth Economy, on how to work toward a moral economy. MEP recently signed a publication contract with Berrett-Koehler Publishers who plan to release the book in early 2009. The MEP team has developed a 2-year strategic plan, focusing on book promotion and outreach with a view to stimulating an evolving dialogue and action plan that build from the book and its message.
The vision of the MEP is that the global political-economic order shifts from one of unrestrained economic growth, ecological degradation and social inequity to one in right relationship with the commonwealth of life.
The mission of the MEP is to promote new global mechanisms to steer the political economic order on a path leading to right relationship. The work of the MEP focuses on issues of governance and policy, social well-being, ecological coherence and economic relationships and process, through a proposal for four institutions: an earth reserve, a form of global federalism, trusteeships and a mandatory world court.
The MEP will pursue four overarching goals in 2008-2010, mindful of the many other Quaker and non-Quaker groups and individuals making contributions toward the MEP vision:
1) develop an organizational structure and capacity adequate to accomplishing its goals.
2) promote and raise awareness of the book and its message among Quakers and non-Quakers worldwide, particularly the need for new global mechanisms to ensure a political-economic order in right relationship with the commonwealth of life.
3) develop and promote ways to use the book and related materials (queries, pamphlets, articles, powerpoints, films, study guides, etc.) in Quaker and non-Quaker venues, so as to stimulate thinking and action toward the vision of right relationship between the economy and the commonwealth of life, as presented in the book and refined in ongoing collaborative inquiry and discussion.
4) identify key organizations and individuals with similar concerns, ranging from local to national and international, for exchange of information, cooperation and/or partnership, to develop and implement action plans relating to those concerns that extend through and beyond 2010.
A symposium on the book and its message is being planned for February 2009.
For more information, to join the MEP mailing list or to participate in the MEP, please contact Geoff Garver at moraleconomy (at) sympatico.ca.
Website coming soon: moraleconomy.org (June 2008)
Overview of the book RIGHT RELATIONSHIP: BUILDING A WHOLE EARTH ECONOMY
Most people have been conditioned to accept the operation of the economy as an article of faith. Unlimited growth and wealth accumulation are seen as the “natural law” of the economy and nothing can be done to alter this fact – even if it means the integrity of Earth’s ecological and social systems are severely damaged in the process. This “inconvenient truth” is now a moral challenge. We are faced with a choice: bring the economy into right relationship with the planet and its inhabitants, or suffer the consequences -- the increasing destruction of Earth’s life support systems and social structures. Drawing on the Quaker principle of “right relationship,” Right Relationship: Building a Whole Earth Economy presents a proposal for bringing our economy, our ethics, and our environment into alignment.
What is right relationship? A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, resilience, and beauty of the commonwealth of life. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.
Five questions on right relationship:
1. What is an economy in right relationship for? An economy in right relationship maintains social and ecological integrity, resilience and beauty.
2. How does an economy in right relationship work? An economy in right relationship is built on an understanding of how life on earth is part of the evolution of the universe and is subject to its laws.
3. What is the right scale of the economy? An economy in right relationship respects human dignity and ecological integrity, and stays within the capacity of Earth’s biosphere to provide for, and assimilate waste from, humans and all other species.
4. What is a right basis for distributing the benefits and burdens of the economy? A fair allocation of the economy’s benefits and burdens among the Earth’s whole commonwealth of life provides neither too much nor too little for present and future generations of life’s commonwealth.
5. What governance is suited to a flourishing and dynamic whole earth economy? Governance institutions in right relationship contain maintains the spark of competition within the engines of social well-being and ecological health. An earth reserve, a form of global federalism, trusteeships and a mandatory world court provide a framework for resilient local communities.
How can we get there ?
Grounding and clarification. Right relationship is grounded in awe for the cosmos and an ethic of humankind’s appropriate place and relationship to the cosmos and the earth.
Design. There is an urgent priority for models, pilots and techniques built on right relationship to be developed, with the benefit of history but thoroughly and thoughtfully adapted to the present.
Witness. Everyone who wants a future for an earth that supports life’s commonwealth needs to demand changes that will lead to right relationship.
Non-violent reform. Quaker history contains many examples of reform leading to right relationship, but the template for abolishing slavery is the most well known. This model can serve as the basis for building a whole earth economy in right relationship with life’s commonwealth.
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