The society we have been building for generations is basically a failure. Society is not resilient to shock like a pandemic or failing democracy. Nor is it healthy for humans or our relations. What would a healthy society look like?

What Does Not Work? Basically Everything

We have become a people who cannot feed, clothe, shelter or educate themselves without destroying the Earth. During good times greed holds cooperation together. During bad times fear does. When it all falls apart everyone except the wealthy are hurt. All of my friends and family are hurting in one way or another right now.

One of the beneficial side effects of the Coronavirus outbreak is that it affects even the spoiled wealthy nations. This thought has not been connected nor may ever be except by the few reading these writings. Our communal fear is similar, but only a fraction of the fear felt by peoples who are invaded by war or by animals as their homes are clear-cut; as they are hunted and caught in fishing nets or herded to slaughter; felt by Native Americans seeing their entire village die from a mysterious white man’s disease; or the fear embodied by people forced into slavery for profit. What we feel today is nothing compared to the fear, horror, screams and tears inflicted for thousands of years by civilization onto each other, indigenous peoples and all other species. Civilization may provide a lot of surplus and conveniences for the few, but it is a crime against all life and Earth itself.

The Only Solutions To Turn Things Around

Given the COVID-19 virus outbreak, here are some possible solutions, in some order of priority, that could turn things around toward a healthy society. Human rights that were free before civilization eliminated them such as food, shelter, healthcare, transportation, communication, community, and emotional support should again be free. We will be on our way to beyond civilization when society is like the following:

• Healthcare, including dental and vision, is free — nothing to even sign on the way out the door. Care is high quality and readily available. Slack exists in the system to handle medical crises. All medical patents are dissolved and become open source. All medical ingredients listed by common and scientific name listed in proportion. We have to get 10x further than Medicare for all. Keep reading.
• Food up to reasonable calorie intake is free. The food is healthy and organic. Junk food and liquor are illegal; with the exception of dark chocolate for mental health.
• Every person now owns the dwelling in which they live. Rentals are converted to ownership. Mortgages and leases are dissolved. People who own more than two dwellings lose the surplus.
• All public transportation is plentiful and free to encourage use.
• A digital phone, pad or laptop, and cellular connection is available free for every student and adult.
• Youth are taught permaculture, herbology, local indigenous culture, non-violent communication, art, music and non-competitive fitness. Each child gets out to explore wild places several days per school year. This does excludes city parks. It has to be truly wild and scenic forests, mountains, rivers. Every K–12 school has a school garden to which all students contribute time to tending and nurturing the plants so that they can enjoy eating what they grow. College is free. Every student is taught medically accurate anatomy, sex education, birth control and STD prevention.
• Destructive and frivolous military spending ceases. There is more than enough waste there to pay for all of the above.
• Monopolies, especially in media, are illegal. Antitrust is resumed. Media companies have to be locally nonprofit owned. No entity owns more than one media.
• Forestry is over. Building is done from recycle and salvage. Forests are someone else’s home and essential to our survival as well. Cutting and fire suppression end to let Mother Nature restore the balance.
• Corporate personhood has ended. Only people now have the right of speech.
• Elections are now publicly funded. No private donations are permitted.
• The Executive and non-democratic Senate bodies of government are ended. Their duties are transferred to the one body that represents all the people: The House. Representation now matches citizen demographics. We no longer have legislative bodies of old white men. Following the great council of the Iroquois, only women can vote. Benjamin Franklin stole the concept of the U.S. government from the Iroquois. The Americans added the Executive branch, men voting instead of women, and eliminated the entire tribe voting to go to war or change the borders.
• All species and ecosystems have equal rights with humans. Rivers, seas, forests now have inalienable rights to exist in peace.
• Concentration of wealth has ended. No person owns more than $5 million. No person or entity owns or leases more than one section, 640 acres.
• Financial markets cease to exist. Financial markets created billionaires. Billionaires should not exist. Thank you Bernie Sanders. If a business needs money, it can borrow it.
• Let anyone create their own money or crypto currency. However, all exchanges must provide full 1099 capital gains tax reporting. All transactions must be available permanently online in a uniform reporting format. All API calls must be able to be be made and paginated in one call without complex looping; geek talk. See Bitdexs.com.
• For now, hunting and fishing other species has ended. Other species are outnumbered and defenseless against humans. Animal domestication has ended. Domestication is a crime against nature, despite what we read in the Book of Genesis says. No ecosystem survives out of balance forever. It’s called extinction.

The Biggie: One-Child Families

• One child families. When you leave the hospital with your baby, you also leave with a vasectomy or an appointment for a tubal ligation. Without being committed to one child families, all of the other changes above are a lost cause. Human growth will overwhelm and benefit. We must abandon growth and embrace contraction of the human species for all life to survive.

What Does This World Look Like?

Simple, a world without fear and peace for all. This should all not sound out of reach or ridiculous. Humanity lived in harmony with the Earth for countless generations. We will have to give up many conveniences. If we don’t, Nature will take them from us anyway. If that is the case, all life on Earth will have to descend further before balance is regained.

Here is an excerpt from related essay that I recommend in FOREIGN AFFAIRS by Branko Milanovic. The Real Pandemic Danger Is Social Collapse. March 19, 2020.[1]

If you can produce your own food, if you do not depend on publicly provided electricity or water, you are not only safe from disruptions that may arise in food supply chains or the provision of electricity and water; you are also safer from getting infected, because you do not depend on food prepared by somebody else who may be infected, nor do you need repair people, who may also be infected, to come fix anything at your home. The less you need others, the safer and better off you are. Everything that used to be an advantage in a heavily specialized economy now becomes a disadvantage, and the reverse.

Educators

Circulate these ideas in your class. Have a group or person present each one. Propose to the class what this would look like and what the benefits to all will be. Peace.

Chuck Burr is author of Culturequake: The Restoration Revolution. Revised Fourth Edition. 10th Anniversary.

Post Editor, Beth Brown — Beth is a lifestyle writer and former assistant news editor of the Easley Progress. She graduated from Columbia College with a focus on Writing and Public Affairs. She is also a singer/songwriter/musician, yogi, activist and Love Warrior for Mother Earth.

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[Image 1] Around the campfire. Tristan Schmurr. Luxembourg, Luxembourg.

[1] FOREIGN AFFAIRS. The Real Pandemic Danger Is Social Collapse: As the Global Economy Comes Apart, Societies May, Too. March 19, 2020. Branko Milanovic.