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Travail of the ages: new institutions for an evolving society |
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Travail of the ages: new institutions for an evolving society, by Peter Gibb
We live in a time of unparalleled change. The familiar social institutions within which we grew up, and in which we now participate as adults, are not what once they were. It has always been the case that our institutions shift and change shape, develop and decline, supplant and finally are supplanted. As the American poet James Russell Lowell once wrote:
When the travail of the Ages wrings earth's systems to and fro;
New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth;
They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth.
The ’truth' and the ’good' of an age must manifest themselves in its social institutions. Today our ’earth's systems', in terms of both natural and human ecology, are being ’wringed' to the point of imminent rupture.
Society's institutions are now changing to a degree and at a rate that is unprecedented. It seems that much of our social landscape will become unrecognisable in our lifetime. What might the new landscape look like?
It must be leaving behind the time of statist control, and entering the time of participatory governance: leaving the time of authority and knowledge controlled by cabal, and entering the time of popular enlightenment and empowerment and knowledge accessed by information and technology: leaving the time of work as an inadequate commercial bargain, and entering the time of work as a gift: leaving the time of community as a fiscal burden to be borne, and entering the time of community as rewarding covenant.
New institutions are emerging and coming to serve us to these ends. Some provide us with new social places, like the internet and worldwide web. Some give us new social structures, like the global jurisdiction to be exercised by the International Criminal Court. Some provide new social mechanisms, like local and multiple currencies and other systems of exchange. Some provide new social functions, like the collection and divvying of the rental value of our common resources. The process of change is evolutionary: the potential for reform to the ends of justice is revolutionary. Consider our individual participation in the common inheritance of nature and community. We are beginning to understand again that the earth is the common property of all life. As this becomes more widely seen to be the truth, there will be popular demand for practical reform and we might wonder what the best means of achieving equity is.
The co-opting of the state to the task of instituting that equity in our enjoyment of our birthright may not necessarily be the right solution. It is by no means certain that ’government' is the proper clearing house of the common dividend of life. It seems possible that new and dedicated social institutions will emerge for the purpose of manifesting that new understanding and popular demand, and for realising the necessary new social functions. The Sky Trust is one such proposal
Peter Gibb
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