to Europe’s today; military interventions will be rare and arms
sales small. The resources thus freed up will be deployed to join
with other nations in addressing climate change and other global
environmental threats, nuclear proliferation, world poverty and
underdevelopment, and other global challenges. The U.S. will be
a leader in strengthening the institutions of global governance
and international regulation, and we will be a member in good
standing of the long list of treaties and other international agreements in which we do not now participate.
Politically, implementation of prodemocracy reforms will
have saved our politics from corporate control and the power of
money, and these reforms will have brought us to an unprecedented level of true popular sovereignty. Moreover, government
in America will again be respected for its competence and e;-
ciency. And, yes, taxes will be higher, especially for those with
resources.
Overall, the economy will be governed to ensure broadly
shared prosperity and to preserve the integrity and biological
richness of the natural world. It will simply be assumed that the
priority of economic activity is to sustain human and natural
communities. Investment will concentrate in areas with high
social and environmental returns even where not justified by
financial returns, and it will be guided by democratically determined priorities at the national and local levels. Corporations
will be under e=ective public control, and new patterns of business ownership and management — involving workers, communities, and other stakeholders — will be the norm. Consumerism
will be replaced by the search for meaning and fulfillment in nonmaterial ways, and progress will be measured by new indicators
of well-being other than GDP.
This recitation seems idealistic today, but the truth is we know
how to do these things. Our libraries are full of plausible, a=ordable
policy options, budget proposals, and institutional innovations that
could realize these and other important objectives. And today’s
world is full of useful models we can adapt to our circumstances.
In America the Possible, our dominant culture will have
shifted, from today to tomorrow, in the following ways:
n;from seeing humanity as something apart from nature,
transcending and dominating it, to seeing ourselves as part
of nature, o=spring of its evolutionary process, close kin to
wild things, and wholly dependent on its vitality and the finite
services it provides;
n;from seeing nature in strictly utilitarian terms — human-
ity’s resource to exploit as it sees fit for economic and other
purposes — to seeing the natural world as having intrinsic
value independent of people and having rights that create
the duty of ecological stewardship;
n;from discounting the future, focusing severely on the near
term, to taking the long view and recognizing duties to
future generations;
n;from today’s hyperindividualism and narcissism, and the
resulting social isolation, to a powerful sense of community and
social solidarity reaching from the local to the cosmopolitan;
n;from the glorification of violence, the acceptance of war, and
the spreading of hate and invidious divisions to the total
abhorrence of these things;
n;from materialism and consumerism to the prioritization
of personal and family relationships, learning, experiencing
nature, spirituality, service, and living within limits;
n;from tolerating gross economic, social, and political inequality
to demanding a high measure of equality in all these spheres.
New Values
Many thoughtful Americans have concluded that addressing our
many challenges will require the rise of a new consciousness, with
di=erent values becoming dominant in American culture. For
some, it is a spiritual awakening — a transformation of the human
heart. For others it is a more intellectual process of coming to see
the world anew and deeply embracing the emerging ethic of the
environment and the old ethic of what it means to love thy neighbor as thyself. But for all, the possibility of a sustainable and just
future will require major cultural change and a reorientation regarding what society values and prizes most highly.
We actually know important things about how values and culture can be changed. One sure path to cultural change is, unfortunately, the cataclysmic event — the crisis — that profoundly
challenges prevailing values and delegitimizes the status quo.
The Great Depression is the classic example. I think we can be
confident that we haven’t seen the end of major crises.
Two other key factors in cultural change are leadership and
social narrative. Leaders have enormous potential to change
minds, and in the process they can change the course of history.
And there is some evidence that Americans are ready for another
story. Large majorities of Americans, when polled, express disenchantment with today’s lifestyles and o=er support for values
similar to those urged here.
Another way in which values are changed is through social
movements. Social movements are about consciousness raising,
and, if successful, they can help usher in a new consciousness— perhaps we are seeing its birth today. When it comes to
issues of social justice, peace, and environment, the potential of
faith communities is vast as well. Spiritual awakening to new
values and new consciousness can also derive from literature,
