Ethics, economic instability and world governance

As a result, paralysed and impotent, governments and international agencies wait for our economies to be engulfed by what might well be an economic and financial tsunami. They trust desperately in their "strong fundamentals" and hope and pray, as they did in 1929, that, since doing something might be too dangerous, doing nothing will be enough.

Those of us who lived through the Great Depression remember how often we were assured that "prosperity is just around the corner." Until we fought the most terrible and widespread war in human history, that prosperity never came.

This time, we must take effective action to halt the slide into deep economic depression, with all its political and strategic consequences.

If governments won't take firm action, we must use direct democratic initiatives to induce them, to use an Australian expression, "to move their bloody boots." Right now, the information, biotechnology and quantum revolutions - as well as other scientific and technological advances - promise unprecedented benefits to all mankind. We must sharpen the quality of our national and world governance in ways to ensure that we can all enjoy those benefits. Above all, we must arrest the drift to catastrophe, through terrorism, conflict and economic collapse, before it is too late.