Recently, many Americans exercised their right to vote in national- and state-level elections. This is our currently agreed upon system for making social decisions that hopefully make us stewards of our fate as well as that of our fellow citizens. We put our faith in elected government officials to shape our available opportunities to achieve personal freedom, AND the process in which we can achieve it. Our personal definitions of freedom are diverse and dependent on our individual cultures and contexts (our microsystems). Our national governments influence our culture since they can limit or flourish our potential opportunities. America is an ever-changing institution comprised of our individual hopes and desired liberties governed by our elected officials.
The United Nations (UN) sees the world as a collection of dynamic institutions constantly optimizing for collective yet equal opportunities to life, (self-determined) liberties, and pursuits of happiness. The UN was formed after World War II “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” Decades after its formation, these allied powers realized that we were collectively fighting a war against our common planet through “unsustainable” human development. In 1987 the UN World Commission on Environment and Development published “Our Common Future” and defined sustainable development as that which “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” They were pointing to a tragic use of our common oceans, atmosphere, and biodiversity. These common public goods were no longer serving current human development. “Our Common Future” considers our future generations as stakeholders, but not the perpetuation of past ecosystems that provided for our current abundance.
Nations and private firms are meeting their present needs by creating economic opportunities through multinational expansion. As corporations seek more capital for development, more global investment opportunities become available to individuals or influential groups of individuals to voice their opinions through their voting rights or management engagement. People saving for their own future and the institutions that capitalize on this can invest in the speculated profits of an array of international possibilities. Capital markets have created a diversity of opportunities for us to become stockholders in profits and stakeholders in the social and ecological development of these institutions. In the latter role, we are given the potential as individuals to obtain financial freedom through a diverse set of investments, but we are also given power to become stewards of our shared ecosystem and the fate of how we share our abundance throughout a global society.
In 1602 the Dutch East India Company issued their first stock shares. They marketed ownership in their vast unrealized global potential with the sale of a piece of paper. In 1872, just after land became privatized in Hawaiʻi, 75 families who inhabited and cared for the location of my PhD research, Hāʻena, Kauaʻi, Hawaiʻi, bought the land together because it provided them an abundance of sustenance. One could say land privatization allowed them to buy stock in the unrealized global potential of their place. Agreed upon governance dictates the culture of all organizations. Citizenship and ownership let you chime in on the management of those cultures.
Where does our vote make the most impact? How do we influence systems that encourage the development of humans who care for each other and reciprocate with their true sources of sustenance? At a global macrosystem level the UN has gathered expertise and experience to create a shared set of Sustainable Development Goals. The UN provides guidelines for how we can collectively pursue life, freedom, and happiness at a macro level, but we can’t do that unless we collectively do it at the micro level. The way we educate our children and the cultures we put in their gut define how they personally define life, liberty, and happiness. Those cultures come from land.
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