TOWARDS AN ALTERNATIVE WORLD ORDER -Tracing the elements of the present “developed – under developed” dichotomy (North – South; Rich – Poor; First – Third World) -- President Truman’s speech (July 1949) can be seen as the fountainhead of the present order: ‘ we (the US) must embark on a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas. More than half the people of the world are living in conditions approaching misery. Their food is inadequate. They are victims of disease. Their economic life is primitive and stagnant. Their poverty is a handicap and a threat both to them and to more prosperous areas’

Were the ‘Underdeveloped’ Always So? Share of World GDP China India Europe

Processes of Creation of Underdevelopment Occupation, violence and brute force, and the annihilation of domestic progress: “If the history of British rule in India were to be condensed into a single fact, it is this: there was no increase in India’s per capita income from 1757 to In Britain the per capita incomes rose 14% between 1700 to 1760, 34% between 1760 and 1820 and 100% between 1820 and 1870 Ecological Imperialism In his prologue to ‘Ecological Imperialiasm’ the Biological Expansion of Europe, 900 –1900; Alfred W. Crosby asks “Perhaps European humans have triumphed because of their superiority in arms, organisation and fanaticism, but what in heaven’s name is the reason that the Sun never sets on the empire of the dandelion?”. He also provides an answer, “Perhaps the success of European imperialism has a biological, an ecological component".

Ecological Debt - ongoing Six ecological aspects of debt (University of Berkeley calculations): agricultural intensification, deforestation, overfishing, climate, mangrove depletion, ozone depletion – between 1961 and 2000 offsets the combined financial debt of all nations. Carbon debt calculations Balance Financial flows (all the financial debt) with Material flows – historically and as of now. Cost of Material flows is astoundingly more than that of Financial flows – the ‘Underdeveloped’ people of the South are in fact the Creditors.

Elements of An Alternative Order Replace Market Fundamentalism and Commodification of Resources – particularly the Earth’s – by the Principle of ‘Common Public Good’. Build a World order on this Principle and Philosophy. “Market is a Necessity, but can not be the Philosophy” Aid the Economic Sovereignty of Nations, not the processes of indebtedness. Don’t use AID to dismantle such sovereignty. Insist that the South governments use the economic sovereignty. to craft self-reliant economies and the creation of domestic assets Produce and Consume within the limits of the regenerative capacity of the Earth – the economic system must be made subservient to this overarching limitation.