Just Societies
A World in Dignity and Equity
Decisions taken today may impact the future of life on this planet for decades or even centuries. Yet, our current economic systems is driven by short-term profit-making and our representative democracies hardly reflect the interests of non-voting and succeeding generations.
The WFC program on Just Societies seeks to counter this discrimination against long-term thinking and acting so that responsibility for for our common future becomes policy-priority. It identifies and promotes new knowledge and holistic expertise, and develops concrete proposals for institutional checks and balances safeguarding long-term security. The diverse projects share the goal to spread ethical, integrated, long-term orientation in all sectors of society to accelerate the shift to sustainable practices and respect for the universal and inviolable dignity of all life now and in the future.
Guardians for Future Generations
The World Future Council wants to install an official institution with the mandate to speak up for the rights of future generations, so that the democracy gap for the representation of long-term interests can be narrowed. Current business and investment is geared at quick profits and representative governments tailored to the needs and desires of the present voters – to the detriment of all overarching sustainability commitments and plans that corporations, countries or regions have committed to. Some countries have turned to counter this discrimination against the long term with an additional body independent from electorate majorities that will review proposals about their impact on future generations.
Crimes against Future Generations
A second project is to develop and spread knowledge and legal concepts for the amendment of our current institutions, so that the currently prevailing structural discrimination against long-term interests is overcome. The first bias that the Commission challenged was the impunity for severe threats to the long-term health, safety and living conditions of future generations. As environmental devastation of the planet continues and gathers momentum, despite increasingly precise knowledge on the devastating effects, regulatory approval or authorization of (potentially) future-foreclosing behavior needs to be declared as unacceptable for the global community and eventually as criminal.
Holistic Science and Education
The goal of the work on Holistic Science & Education is to draw attention to the influence that our ideas about reality have on what we see, what we believe is possible, and therefore how we define success, intend to lead happy lives, design communities and set up the laws of our societies. It challenges assumptions in our world views and scientific paradigms that our current culture has accepted as “normal” or unavoidable, but that the Commission sees at the root of many of the difficulties we are facing today. Such assumptions involve our views on human nature, standards in economics, consequences of “neutral” technology decisions, as well as power relationships hidden behind a-historical viewpoints on fundamental norms like justice, property, or democracy. Read more on how we connect theory and pracitce >>
