Finding a way out and beyond the present socio-economic and environmentally destructive cycles of economic boom and bust, primarily and most logically, begins with reviewing the value of ‘life’ itself.  From the outset, it is of vital importance to recognise that this much-needed assessment will not get off to a start at all, if we fail to also evaluate the mandates set down as the founding constitutional principles of the majority of developed nations.  ‘The duty to safeguard the first and highest right of the members that make up any particular state or territory, should be and morally has to be – to safeguard each and every member’s ‘right to life.’

Without this establishment being upheld in a tangible and secure way, it can be little argued that the role of governments, organized religion, schools and clubs as well as even families, is rendered nil and void. All these institutions become a complete and utter mockery of supposed, unity when these vital principles and practices are denied, suspended or negated altogether. In this event, citizens would be better off fending for themselves when ‘the right to life’ itself through allegiance and dedication to combining instruments and labour to be more than any individual can be, or have separately, is NOT the practiced constitutional base of any imposed societal structure such as local, state and federal governments which confiscate wealth via taxes that do not fairly or directly benefit the majority who pay into the coffers.

Which brings communitarians dedicated to progressing in both knowledge and skills toward participation in practical demonstrations of ‘common wealth’ communal union, to the first of many foundational enquiries. In the fifth year of association, communitarians begin their transition into ‘common purse’ shared economies by pondering the question: ‘how is the obligation of society to safeguard the lives of its members, disrupted, when one person or a minor group of its members, have more entitlement to capital; which includes access to land and resources that support life, liberty, peace and economic security than any other?’

Through diligent group study of ‘common wealth’ shared economic constitutional principles and practices’, communitarians soon discover that in countless societies throughout the world, the majority of people are hampered in their efforts to live a decent life by the limit of rights to access both land and the necessary resources to sustain themselves. This is the state of ‘play’ despite the fact that under the majority of current religious and secular national as well as international governing constitutions, it is stated quite clearly that every citizen regardless of race, gender or creed, has the right to eat in order to live, also to be clothed and housed, educated and to consume a mass of necessary and desirable things. The sum of which constitutes what is commonly known as ‘wealth or capital.’

Make no mistake, this constitutional determination is explicitly laid out – open and freely announced by the majority of democratic nations; and yet rarely respected, let alone practically and universally applied by even organizations as wonderfully credentialed as the United Nations. 

Now if the supply of elements essential to sustaining life were to be always unlimited; as is the air that we all need to breathe, it would not be at all necessary to ensure that each living thing had access to his or her share. However, as it stands, the supply of wealth is at all times, limited. As a result, if some have a disproportionate share of land and necessary resources to sustain life then inevitably, the remainder will not have enough, and may in fact be left with nothing; as is indeed the case for billions all over the planet.

With the founding principle of so-called democratic governments and highest principled religions, as well as, humanity-centred organizations, in mind, if it is so constituted that the first right of the citizen, or member, is protection of their life and the first duty of such governing elements to furnish that protection as their essential founding assignment; must it not follow that these institutions, without fault or deliberate avoidance, ensure that the means of life are not unduly appropriated by particular individuals or minority groups, such as corporations and investors, banks or general profiteers; but are thus, consistently distributed so as to meet the needs of all?

Accordingly, in order to secure the means of life for all, surely it follows that the state or territory governing instrument’s, critical duty is to ensure that the resources available for consumption, are properly distributed to meet the needs and desires of the people under their jurisdiction. Without such an arrangement, and the constitutional duty enacted, all under a country or territory’s democratic banner of free trade, which equates to unrestricted commercial, for-profit trafficking of resources and their value-added production, from continent to continent; all might fare well for today, but tomorrow, all are likely to come to starvation unless new sources of wealth are continually sourced and produced.

Rationally it follows then that the constitutional duty of society to guarantee the life of its citizens, accordingly entails not merely the equal distribution of wealth for consumption, but also the employment of its capital to the best possible advantage for all by the production of consistently increasing wealth. In regard to both custodian duties, it can be simply evidenced that society would fail completely and negligently, in its first and most important operative, if and when, it permits individuals or minority interests and factions to withdraw from the collective available wealth, whether for consumption or employment as capital, any amount beyond the equal allotted entitlement of all citizens.

Communitarians recognise the fundamental truth that to allow disproportionate distribution to transpire, is to sanction common robbery – theft and the embezzlement of the ‘right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness of a country or territory’s citizens.

In spite of evidence that this ‘natural law’ cannot be transgressed, this type of insidious private, political and corporate crime, occurs ‘in plain sight’ across the globe, each and every day, year after year, seemingly without end. Why; only because ‘we the people’ are so thoroughly conditioned to accepting this state of corrupt economic ‘play’ that most of us deem such complex larceny, as normal; even legitimate.

Such a system that materially honours and sets as its foundation, the law of entitlement of all living things to self-preservation, has never been refuted by any intelligently recognized or valued philosopher, priest or crown. The supreme recognized right of all to live a life worth living, is consequently, the responsibility of all to insist that society be so organized as to secure that right to be upheld, unfailingly.

Why we have failed to arrive at our destination of birthright-access to the means of life, under so-called democracy and Christian, Islamic, Buddhist or even Hindu principles, appears unfathomable.  Since the slow rise of what we call modern civilization, ensuring that provisions necessary to sustain all, is achieved and protected, has been a principle subscribed to by all governments and peoples. Is it not for this very purpose that we finance police forces, courts, armies, and the vast array of government machinery at all levels?

Under these terms, should we be restrained from holding that any administration; regardless of its variety or promised term of reign, that does not at any cost and to the utmost of its resources, safeguard the lives of its citizens, consequently and irrevocably, forfeits all claim to entitlement to remain reverenced or installed?

For millennia, while governments, crowns and even dictators have professed so broadly and well in words, the lofty principle to institute assured life-sustaining provision, along with liberty and the enjoyment of that life, for their citizens, the clear and indisputable evidence is that the majority have completely ignored the practical implementation of half; and vastly the greater half of its meaning. So wholly overlooked and disregarded, is the peril to which life is exposed on the economic side. Ignored are solicits of hunger, thirst, exposure to the harsh elements, ignorance and disease.

In practical terms, it seems that we have discarded our hard-won civilizing ideologies, attainments and ingenuity to provide the means of life for far greater numbers than the bow, or the club, or the spear ever could. Clearly it is within our scope and capacity to produce more than adequate and even excess amounts of quality healthful food; clean safe drinking and irrigation water; appropriate to taste, gender and climate-suitable clothing; environmentally-sustainable, comfortable and secure shelter; fast safe and energy efficient non-polluting transport; along with creative inspiring education and the means to explore and enjoy a vast array of leisure and development activities.

In so-called civilized societies, it is unconscionable that these base-institutes are not made concrete reality as the first priority of the installed ruling operatives and acting religious leaders following suit. The fact that we do not demand the immediate reorganization of our food growing systems to secure the long-term generational, as well as, accurate and fully scientifically-calculated, day to day need for basic sustenance essential to sustain the global population, is beyond comprehension. In all seriousness, this lack of practical accommodation of the means of life, does not border on criminal negligence; rather, it constitutes the outright deliberate torturous murder of millions currently living, along with millions more who are bound to be born into this same needless, dreadful, inhuman suffering.

With few exceptions, the so-called democratic societies that spare no expense and spend trillions on internal and external defence, via financing standing armies, police and prisons, have come to rely on the primitive notion that it is only the club, dagger, bullet, chemical poison, bomb or other forms of physical violence that can threaten the lives, liberty and happiness of their citizens. Seemingly cast off are the once greater cares of defending the population within a country’s borders and its neighbours, against the far more constant and worse deadly foe — in a word, economic want and all it entails. Is this not the greater violence and the greater threat?

Also is not economic want not the basis for violence in all its forms; from the impoverished kid at school that bullies those who look down upon them, make fun of their shabby clothes and lack of lunch; to the struggling husband that loses his job or can’t find a good-enough paying job to support his family that then hits out at his wife and children in frustration? Is material want not also the dry-wood that kindles the flame of racism and gang wars when those who are marginalized and sat out of sustainable employment and enterprise are pushed into impoverished urban and rural settings devoid of opportunities to participate in adequate economic return?

Additionally, on the global stage, both now and throughout history; is real or perceived ‘economic want and insecurity’ not the catalyst that precedes all declarations of war, invasions, supposed ethnic cleansings, or outright persecutions of specific groups of people who are seen to be taking, consuming or claiming more than their deemed fair or entitled share of a climatically-stressed or overpopulated and condensed resource-stressed region? Time and time again, we overlook the plain fact that anybody; by whatever means, whether directly or remotely, who takes away or curtails the means of another’s subsistence, attacks his or her life, as treacherously as if they were stabbed with a knife, shot with a bullet, or blown up by a bomb.

Interfering or denying someone the means of life and all it entails, is no less an attack and probably far worse than being confronted by a gun pointed at one’s head; because with a direct attack, the victim at least has a chance of defending themselves. The fundamental issue that the majority of those in charge of democratic and capitalist, for-profit economies fail to consider, is that no amount of police, judicial, or military protection can prevent even one of their citizens from perishing, miserably, if he or she has not enough to eat, wear or the right and means to secure shelter.