The Solution - Why Our Attempts to Tackle Global Problems Fail, and a Way Forward

Our attempts to improve the world- to provide the things we relish ourselves- human rights, democracy, and a decent standard of living seem to not only be failing, but maybe even making things worse. Despite hundreds of billions of dollars spent in the Middle East, we seem to be slipping ever farther from peace. Despite billions of dollars spent in development aid, the gap between the rich and the poor is growing. Why do our efforts seem so fruitless?

Our argument here is that there is a disconnect between our tools and the scope of the problems. We are now talking about millions of vehicles and persons in transit all over the world every day. No single nation could ever solutions possibly check each one for potential threats of terrorism or disease. Immigration policies in Europe and North America are failing miserably as migrants continue to pour across the borders in search of better ways of life. Our approach in the past has been to rely on guns to contain problems in the short-term and aid to help alleviate and solve it in the long-run. This approach is premised on the principle of sovereignty, that every nation must respect other "legitimate" governments and deal with them as equal partners. We know from 50 years of development aid, that there is precious little to show for these efforts in terms of long-term results. Part of these resources have been squandered by our own governments, and part by recipient governments.

The solution seems obvious to us- we need global institutions to tackle global problems. We do not mean corrupt and ineffective institutions like the UN and World Bank, or ones like the IMF or WTO that are completely out of touch with everyday reality, illegitimate and unaccountable. We mean institutions that are democratic, accountable, and limited in scope to dealing with global problems on a global scope. In this age of accelerated migration, communication, and sharing of benefits and problems across borders, we have to start to think of ourselves as global as well as national citizens. We hope you will take a look at our proposal, including responses to critiques, and let us know what you think. We hope you will join us in advocating what is a sensible solution to a wide variety of problems that can eliminate poverty and want and vastly reduce insecurity across the globe with a minimal effort on our part in a very short period of time.