Dear Prince Charles, Klaus Schwab, and all Leaders aligned with the WEF / Davos Great Reset,
CC: António Guterres (UN Sec Gen) and Volkan Bozkir (President of the UNGA)
As leaders in our fields of economics, business, finance, activism, broadcasting, academia, politics, and more, we write to you in response to your call for a Great Reset.
We share many of your concerns and insights. We agree on the fundamental gravity of the situation humanity faces and that the root cause of these intersecting crises is systemic and cultural. We are accountable to our children, our global family, and those on the frontlines to ensure swift change. The science is clear: only swift change can make a difference now. Your Royal Highness, you yourself have stated that we need “a paradigm shift, one that inspires action at revolutionary levels”.
To change course, we must reckon with the fact that, over the last thirty years, with full knowledge of the risks and consequences, we have recklessly plunged deeper into crisis.
Our political economy is designed to fail us – it contains critical system design errors, by prioritising profit over people and planet. This problem is beyond bad actors. How our choices are made and by whom, the actions that follow, and the direction we take are all dictated by a system that incentivises growth, extraction, and consumption: in short, the destruction of all we know. This is a crisis of our governance. Consequently, the proposed Great Reset, however well-intentioned, lacks legitimacy.
This emergency, wrought by our own hands, demands that we depart from the narrow limitations of ‘what is’ and rediscover our shared capacity for agency and ingenuity, to ask ‘what if?’ But what shape must such an intervention take? What is the active ingredient that can spark this transformation? Which systems need to be re-engineered?
In response, we invite you to uplift our call for Global Assemblies to safeguard this vital transition. A Global Assembly, is already being built, from the grassroots to the global. The jury-like selection process of sortition utilised by Citizens Assemblies was central to the democracy of ancient Athens (and upon which modern citizens’ assemblies are based) and would include consolidation of critical thinking skills and consultation with those with lived experience and other relevant expertise.
The process draws moral authority from the participation of all peoples of the world, from all walks of life. It involves collaboration between countries, sectors, and interests whilst working towards generating practical actions commensurate with the challenges we face. Crucially, the process enables legitimate “action at revolutionary levels” whilst mitigating the risks of civil unrest, societal dislocation, and chaos.
Global Assemblies offer the infrastructure for the regenerative reset we actually need: deepening it, spreading it, weaving it together. It is an intervention pregnant with the vision, meaning, and power to shred the veil of ignorance obscuring our co-creative potential.
Will you join us in championing visionary Global Assemblies, elevating and broadening our sense of the possible, to sculpt a just and ethical Great Reset?
We, the undersigned, agree that:
- There are systemic* issues in our political economy that are creating crises such as pandemics, climate breakdown, and mass extinction whilst also preventing swift and sufficient action.
- We call for Global Assemblies of ordinary people empowered to study, develop, and review solutions that global institutions will be obliged to implement, effecting synchronous change across national boundaries.
Please join us here and become a signatory.
*Systemic issues and those with the power to make changes (examples)
Whilst many changes are needed at the level of national governments, our globalised economic system concentrates power within chosen institutions, international agreements, and the “free” market. Global and regional bodies can both make and champion changes at a state level.
A Global Citizens’ Assembly could consider the following issues:
1. Extreme inequality in access to resources: leading to overconsumption by the wealthy (50% of emissions from 10% of the population) and an inability to fund necessary changes by individuals, communities and countries; and driving the concentration of power to the wealthy few.
Power holders / Influencers and areas to consider change:
- OECD, IFRS, UN – International tax rules with sufficient enforcement
- All Enterprises, WEF – Income inequality within businesses
- G20, Financial Regulators – Private Sector Debt of the Global South
- IMF, World Bank – Debt and structural adjustment programmes
- WTO, OECD, UN, – Sufficient regulation of markets and trade
- BIS, Central Banks – Control of money creation by private banks
- OECD, IFRS – Distributive taxation
- OECD, IMF, World Bank – Provision of basic human services and needs
- BIS, Financial Regulators – Sufficient regulation of the financial sector
2. Incentivisation of harm: a focus on economic growth and profit regardless of the social and environmental costs; promoting disconnection from nature, destroying and damaging communities and ecosystems
Power holders / Influencers and areas to consider change:
- All – Reevaluate the pursuit of endless growth, in line with BIS and OECD research
- OECD, UNCTAD and WEF – Changes to the fundamentals of company law
- BIS – Internalisation of social and environmental harm within business models
- Eurostat, BIS, – Alternative measures of progress
- OECD and IFRS – Accounting standards for well being economy
- WTO, OECD, UN, Circular, constrained economy, removal of built in obsolescence, reconsider ACCTS
- Financial Regulators, Central Banks – Regulation of financing destructive industries
3. Missing or problematic law: removal of protections and accountability for those that cause harm, affirming that nature has ultimate value through rights in law.
Power holders / Influencers and areas to consider change:
- UN Rome Statutes – Ecocide law to criminalise the mass damage and destruction of the environment
- WTO, World Bank Group, UN, EU – International Trade agreements and law including Investor-State Dispute Settlements and similar legals mechanisms, including Energy Charter Treaty
- UN, Rights of nature and championing rights of indigeous communities
4. Concentration of power: the undermining of functional democracy through power being concentrated in near-monopoly corporations and billionaires
Power holders / Influencers and areas to consider change:
- WTO – Regulate the misuse of big data for mass manipulation
- OECD, WTO- Increased support for local economies
- WTO, UN – Tackling monopolistic power
- All Enterprises – Employee power within enterprises in decision making
- WTO, UN – Intellectual property regimes