Occupy World Street
* Book: Occupy World Street. A Global Roadmap for Radical Economic and Political Reform. by Ross Jackson. Chelsea Green, 2012.
URL = http://www.chelseagreen.com/bookstore/item/occupy_world_street/
Description
"Ordinary citizens the world over have long paid the price for the swashbuckling behavior of the corporate and political elite. We’ve seen the reigning establishment widen the gap between rich and poor, champion endless growth on a finite planet, wreak havoc on developing nations, and ravage ecosystems in a mad race for natural resources.
Now, as demonstrators worldwide demand change, Occupy World Street offers a sweeping vision of how to reform our global economic and political structures, break away from empire, and build a world of self-determining sovereign states that respect the need for ecological sustainability and uphold human rights.
In this refreshingly detailed plan, Ross Jackson shows how a handful of small nations could take on a leadership role; create new alliances, new governance, and new global institutions; and, in cooperation with grassroots activists, pave the way for other nations to follow suit." (http://www.chelseagreen.com/bookstore/item/occupy_world_street/)
Ross Jackson:
"This ideal society would put a high priority on living in decentralized, diverse, human scale communities with a high degree of local democracy. Such a society would insist on the rights of the developing countries, who are considered part of the “global family”, to real development, including control over their economies and cultures. Protecting the environment is not sufficient without specifying the means to do so. Therefore respect for Nature, as reflected in the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth, and respect for the human rights of all world citizens—for example, as defined in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights——are essential ingredients.
Thus the international structure in my ideal world would be a universe of small, independent sovereign states in which a limited degree of sovereignty is delegated to a global governance body, namely the right of this body to issue binding directives deemed necessary to ensure long-term sustainability of the planet and the observance of human rights in all member states. All other aspects of sovereignty would remain with the individual sovereign states. In this way, a flowering of diverse cultures respecting local preferences and priorities will be allowed to evolve within a structure that guarantees long-term survival and basic human rights. Such an overall structure is independent of ideology, and is rather dictated by the fundamental premises that we started with: sustainability, human rights, democracy and freedom. In principle, a sovereign country in such a society could be anything from a socialist state to a capitalist state to a religious-based state, anything from a high-tech industrialized state to a low-tech primarily agricultural state, provided only that the ground rules guaranteeing sustainability and human rights are respected." (http://www.occupyworldstreet.org/about-ross-jackson/read-ross-jacksons-blog/entry/imagining-an-ideal-world)
About the author
"Ross Jackson, an expert in international finance and operations research, has long been an innovative leader in both the business and NGO worlds. He is chairman of Gaia Trust, a Danish-based foundation that supports the Global Ecovillage Network and Gaia Education, as well as hundreds of sustainability projects in forty countries. He is also director and owner of Urtekram, Scandinavia's largest wholesale organic-food company, and former chairman of Gaiacorp, foreign-exchange consultants and hedge fund managers. Jackson is the coeditor of When No Means Yes: Danish Visions of a Different Europe and Gaian Economics: Living Well Within Planetary Limits." (http://www.chelseagreen.com/bookstore/item/occupy_world_street/)