Steps Towards the New World Order In
contradistinction to the totalitarian world order, what should the rest of the world plan?
Towards what world objectives should the democracies work? Utopian schemes, idealistic
forms of government and cultural living processes have ever been the playthings of the
human mind, down through the centuries. But these Utopias have been so far ahead of
possibility that their presentation seems useless. They are most of them wholly
impractical.
Certain immediate possibilities and attainable objectives can, however, be worked out,
given a definite will-to-good and patience on the part of humanity.
Certain major and spiritual premises should lie back of all efforts to formulate the
new world order. Let me state some of them:
- The new world order must meet the immediate need and not be an attempt to satisfy
some distant, idealistic vision.
- The new world order must be appropriate to a world which has passed through a
destructive crisis and to a humanity which is badly shattered by the experience.
- The new world order must lay the foundation for a future world order which will be
possible only after a time of recovery, of reconstruction, and of rebuilding.
- The new world order will be founded on the recognition that all men are equal in origin
and goal but that all are at differing stages of evolutionary development; that personal
integrity, intelligence, vision and experience, plus a marked goodwill, should indicate
leadership. The domination of the proletariat over the aristocracy and bourgeoisie, as in
Russia, or the domination of an entrenched aristocracy over the proletariat and middle
classes, as has been until lately the case in Great Britain, must disappear. The control
of labor by capital or the control of capital by labor must also go. [191]
- In the new world order, the governing body in any nation should be composed of those who
work for the greatest good of the greatest number and who at the same time offer
opportunity to all, seeing to it that the individual is left free. Today the men of vision
are achieving recognition, thus making possible a right choice of leaders. It was not
possible until this century.
- The new world order will be founded on an active sense of responsibility. The rule will
be "all for one and one for all." This attitude among nations will have to be
developed. It is not yet present.
- The new world order will not impose a uniform type of government, a synthetic religion
and a system of standardization upon the nations. The sovereign rights of each nation will
be recognized and its peculiar genius, individual trends and racial qualities will be
permitted full expression. In one particular only should there be an attempt to produce
unity, and that will be in the field of education.
- The new world order will recognize that the produce of the world, the natural resources
of the planet and its riches, belong to no one nation but should be shared by all. There
will be no nations under the category "haves" and others under the opposite
category. A fair and properly organized distribution of the wheat, the oil and the mineral
wealth of the world will be developed, based upon the needs of each nation, upon its own
internal resources and the requirements of its people. All this will be worked out in
relation to the whole.
- In the preparatory period for the new world order there will be a steady and regulated
disarmament. It will not be optional. No nation will be permitted to produce and organize
any equipment for destructive purposes or to infringe the security of any other nation.
One of the first tasks of any future peace conference will be to regulate this matter and
gradually see to the disarming of the nations. [192]
These are the simple and general premises upon which the new world order must begin its
work. These preliminary stages must be kept fluid and experimental; the vision of
possibility must never be lost, and the foundations must be preserved inviolate, but the
intermediate processes and the experimentations must be carried forward by men who, having
the best interests of the whole at heart, can change the detail of organization whilst
preserving the life of the organism. |