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Summary
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We aim at a radically just, sustainable, democratic and happy society which we call the Society of Agreement. We want the Society of Agreement to be a reality in 2050 or before.
The Society of Agreement is based upon 3 mutually-supporting pillars:
- an unprecedented level of social justice, equality and confidence in the future for all (agreement among humans on the allocation of resources);
- an unprecedented level of democracy in all public institutions and private organisations, from the smallest company or association to the European Union, i.e. pan-European democracy (agreement among humans on decisions); and
- healthy, simple and sustainable consumption and production patterns, under the motto “Live simply, so that all can simply live”, i.e. environmental sustainability (agreement between humans and the laws governing the geo-biosphere upon which we depend), with a prospect of maintaining human civilisation indefinitely.
Download the comprehensive description of the Society of Agreement (ca. 60 pages).
The 3 pillars support each other
The three pillars of the Society of Agreement support each other and are intimately inter-linked. Environmental sustainability is the condition for human civilisation to exist, and thus for justice and democracy to have a meaning. Social justice and confidence in one's future are the prerequisite for the deep political agreements, long-term vision and frugality that sustainability requires. Democracy at all scales is the only area in which human autonomy can deploy in a sustainable, and thus materially-constrained, world. Only a strongly united and deeply democratic European Union has the political power and legitimacy to implement on time these deep transformations of our society, and to overcome the foreseeable resistance of economic and financial interests.
(Learn more about the meaning of these three pillars and how they mutually support each other)
The Society of Agreement constitutes a radically new social contract
The Society of Agreement constitutes a radically new social contract and a comprehensive societal alternative to the current paradigm.
In the Society of Agreement, all citizens are absolutely certain that their essential needs are met, live from their work, in decent living conditions compatible with the finite resources of our planet, and participate in democratic policy- and decision-making. They enjoy authentic satisfactions and gratifying social relations, which are different from, but of higher quality than, those of 2024. Division of labour is performed at the largest possible scale, to process limited resources efficiently and as a reminder of solidarity among all humans. Society is strongly regulated, to ensure a fair access to resources, a fair sharing of rights and obligations, and a fair application of rules.
The main features of the Society of Agreement
The features of the Society of Agreement that are in the starkest contrast to those of our contemporary societies are the following:
- Equality in income and in inherited wealth: the ratio after tax and transfers between the top 1% and the lowest 1% is lower than 3:1 for incomes and lower than 2:1 for inherited wealth;
- Social security: the access to essential goods (healthcare, education, housing, insurance, connection to networks, food in case of crisis) is provided for free;
- Monetary system embedding the finite nature of natural resources: the monetary system contains two currency units, one for renewable resources such as human work and agricultural products, the currency of class A “euro”, allocated as per a person’s work; and one for finite, non-renewable resources such as minerals and the stock of Greenhouse Gases in the atmosphere, the currency of class B “carbo”, allocated equally among all;
- Objective information on products and services, free from advertising;
- Access to land via long-term rental subject to conditions of good stewardship, with no eternal, unlimited ownership;
- Universal access to entrepreneurship: all citizens receive, upon reaching their majority, an endowment enabling them to develop their entrepreneurial initiatives if and when they wish. This endowment can be completed by public venture capital;
- Universal participatory democracy in all public and private entities: all citizens and stakeholders participate in the initiative, the amendment and the selection of collective actions;
- Universality principle embodying the common needs of humans within the European Union, with a unified set of rules and a unified administration, free from competition between fragmented local and national entities;
- Human needs are satisfied with the technical means leading to the lowest total environmental impact (on climate and biodiversity, on energy and resource use). These technical means are based upon technologies that exist or are under development in 2024, with a clear preference for solutions that are long-lasting, circular, pooled among many users and low-tech.
The Society of Agreement is comprehensively described in this document (ca. 60 pages), in its technical, economic and institutional aspects. The document enters in a level of detail sufficient to understand “how the Society of Agreement works”, concretely.
This document also contains the “negative mirror” of the Society of Agreement, i.e. the alienating and environmentally harmful elements of our contemporary society of 2024 which will be relinquished in the Society of Agreement, and that we can dispense of – happily and with relief!