 Wednesday, February 20, 2002
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This morning I received permission to publish the following letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell.
An Open Letter
Secretary of State
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520
Dear Secretary Powell,
Disparity of wealth in the world today fuels anger and desperation in the dispossessed and in those who identify with them. This anger and desperation can be exploited by those with an extremist agenda. We may wish to make changes in our social system that would tend to reduce disparity, or that would ensure that those on the low end of the income distribution spectrum are assured of a significant minimum. By promoting the security of those who are least secure, we would be promoting the security of all.
We need not violate any of our principles to bring about this change. Most all of us believe that the air and water and other natural resources belong to all. We could require that a fee be paid by anyone who takes or degrades the quality of natural resources. The proceeds of the pollution fees and natural resource user-fees would constitute a monetary representation of the value of earth's natural resources, and could rightly be shared among all people equally. The value of these resources has been estimated at $33 trillion per year.
Twenty dollars per day for every person on the planet may be enough to make everyone feel that they have a stake in the system and should work to build and improve it, rather than destroy it. Even those who would not do evil may sit by quietly when they know another is bent on destruction, if they feel that the current system is unjust and offers no prospect for meaningful change. We must win the hearts and minds of the world's people if we want them to help build and defend a civilization, a free and democratic society.
We must empower the dispossessed. Would they choose a world that impoverishes them? Given a free and democratic society, what kind of world would they make? What kind of world would we make? Every one of us should feel that we have opportunities to express our opinion in meaningful ways, (ways that make a difference), regarding how much pollution, monoculture, paving, noise, or extraction of limited resources is just too much. The agreement or lack of agreement between people's expressed will on these issues on the one hand and the actual reality on the other could serve as an objective measure of democracy.
This would mean a change in our system to bring it more into accord with our own principles regarding both commons property ownership and compensation for damage done or value taken. Economic power, in the form of an equal share of natural resource wealth, belongs to all of us. Our political and economic system should reflect this.
We should pay more attention to how natural resource wealth is managed and apportioned. We allow those in pursuit of profit to take or degrade natural resources, but do not require any compensation be paid to the owners of the resources, the people at large. If we would address this glaring inconsistency in our own behavior vis à vis our principles, we could solve many social and environmental ills.
John Champagne
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