Craig Runde
Our values affect our reality and right now that reality is not very positive. Earth and its inhabitants are currently experiencing great strains. Climate change and global warming contribute to weather disasters and conditions that are forcing expensive environmental adaptations and large-scale human migrations. Scientists warn we are in the midst of a sixth extinction, where large scale species loss is caused by human activities.
Our global political and economic systems are under considerable stress. Conflicts in various parts of the world are causing enormous suffering, particularly among civilian populations. Striking economic inequality creates disruptions among and within countries. In addition, the dominance of the United States in global affairs appears to be challenged by China as it exerts its growing military and economic power. The United States is also winning no friends by disrupting economic stability with record tariffs, pulling back from traditional alliances, cutting back support for suffering peoples, and adopting an America First stance.
The values that underpin current global political and economic systems contribute to many of our global problems. They need to change for more sustainable, life affirming systems to be established. Our current situation is aptly described by a quote from Italian philosopher and political theorist, Antonio Gramsci, “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: Now is the time of monsters” (Mintz, 2025).
After exploring how existing values and sentiments give birth to current “monsters,” we will look at a set of new values and view of the kind of global society and governance structure that could result from them. This article will use a framework developed by philosopher and macro-historian Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar from the 1950’s through 1990. One reason to use the example of Sarkar’s values is that they are distinctly different than those underlying current political and economic systems. In addition to exploring those values, we will look at possible system changes Sarkar believed support those values. Finally, we will review Sarkar’s provocative ideas for changing values and creating new systems, often in the face of strong resistance from those in control of current ones. The generalized analysis presented in this brief article would ultimately have to be addressed in much greater detail to develop practical approaches to the changes, test effectiveness, and address resistance.
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Values underlying current systems
Our current global political system is made up of about two hundred nation-states. These nation-states are largely treated as sovereign entities which can control their own internal affairs. In this system, which has been in existence for several hundred years, nation-states often view themselves as competitors with one another for resources, prestige, and other perceived items of value. The nation-states often inculcate their respective populations with a sense of patriotism, which can lead to viewing others as competitors or even enemies. This can lead to wars, where citizens of other lands are dehumanized to legitimate inhumane treatment. Feelings like “my land is the best”, “my country before all others”, or “people of other lands are inferior” have been called geo-sentiments (Sarkar, 1982).
Capitalism, the dominant economic system of our times, also promote analogous competitive values, which can lead to a zero-sum outlook. In modern society this drive to win at all costs has created economic inequalities among countries and among people living in the same country. These inequalities have been exacerbated by growing greed, which has been extolled in popular culture as a positive value, “greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works” (Stone, 1987). The spread of greed has affected governments and added to the inequalities (Sanders, 2025). This has led to a wide variety of social ills including violence, lower educational performance, and drug use, all of which affect the mental and physical health of populations (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2011). Sarkar (1982) terms these values that lead to social inequality, classism, and similar kinds of divisiveness as socio-sentiments.
Sarkar saw capitalism and communism addressing the world in materialistic terms, which he believed caused them to accord less value to nature and spiritual aspects of life (Sarkar, 2025a). Such a viewpoint makes it easier for humans to extract and exploit the world’s resources for short term financial benefit with little regard to long term sustainability. Not surprisingly, destruction of the environment has reached a point where it threatens our existence (Runde, 2019).
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New values that support an alternative system
When serious threats emerge, people often respond by reflecting on the effects of current values and systems and the need to develop new ones. In the wake of the world wars of the twentieth century, many individuals and groups questioned the competitive, antagonistic values of the nation-state system that contributed to the horrors of war. They produced models of international organizations designed to lessen the chances of war. The League of Nations and United Nations provided places for nation-states to discuss and negotiate problems to forestall conflict. At the same time, the sovereign nation states and their competitive values remained intact and made it difficult for the international organizations to be completely successful.
Others sought to overcome the threat of war by creating a world federation or world government to oversee the nation-states and prevent wars between them (Baratta, 2004; Clark and Sohn, 1958; Hutchins, et.al., 1948). Similar efforts have sought to change global governance to more effectively address environmental problems, inequality, and other threats (Global Challenges Foundation, 2025; Radermacher, 2016; Sandhu, Aglibut, and the GGF 2035 Global Futures of Climate-Related Conflict Working Group, 2021).
These efforts have brought attention to and presented alternative options to solve problems caused by the current global systems. They support more egalitarian and life promoting approaches to governance, but they have not been able to bring about significant changes. This may be because they have not been able to change the values that underlie the nation-state political system and its capitalist economic frameworks.
Sarkar’s alternative values
Sarkar created alternatives to the current political and economic models that incorporate spiritual, intellectual, and socio-economic perspectives to produce new ways of governing society for the benefit of all beings. These models rest on a new set of values.
At the heart of his philosophies lies a spiritual core which involves “promoting awareness-transforming technologies like meditation” (Inayatullah, 2001, p. 26). This spiritual viewpoint is balanced with practical living by his concept of cosmic inheritance or cosmic ownership. Here, the universe as seen as a common patrimony that does not belong to any specific person, group, or state. (Bjonnes, 2024) Instead, all people have the right to use (not own) resources in a manner that ensures the welfare of all. Humanity is viewed as a joint family with the sentiment “Live and let others live” (Sarkar, 2025b, ¶4).
Sarkar’s philosophy of neohumanism addresses intellectual challenges related our capacity to live together in alignment with the concept of cosmic inheritance. Neohumanism encourages people to love “all created beings in the universe” (Sarkar, 1982). He calls this practice universalism, which is seen as preferrable to more limited outlooks like nationalism, communalism, casteism, geo-sentiment, and socio-sentiment, which underlie current political and economic systems. Universalism also plays a key role in Sarkar’s geopolitical model.
In addition, Sarkar’s Progressive Utilization Theory (PROUT) provides practical socio-economic approaches for manifesting the idea of cosmic inheritance for the upliftment of all. Among other things it stands for government ensuring that its citizens can earn requisite purchasing power to provide their food, clothing, housing, education, medical care and other essentials in a dignified manner. PROUT is Sarkar’s alternative to our current economic systems.
Sarkar also saw the need for creating balance among the spiritual, intellectual, and socio-economic approaches found in his philosophies (Sarkar, 2025c). If implemented these new values would bring about a dramatic change from our current systems.
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Outcomes of the new values
Sarkar’s philosophic principles introduce several new values. What kind of alternative political and economic systems could emerge from these values?
World government
Sarkar believed that the idea of universalism would help humanity transcend more limited “isms.” From a practical perspective, he thought that a world government would be necessary to materialize the concept of universalism (Sarkar, 2025d). It would enable people throughout the world to be treated on an equal basis.
Since it would take time to overcome skepticism and change people’s values and perceptions about global governance models, Sarkar advocated an evolutionary approach. It would start with a global legislative body and gradually add administrative features that would lead to a fully functioning world government (Sarkar, 2025e; Sarkar, 2025d).
World constitution
A world constitution would be prepared in order to provide guidance for running the world government. It would incorporate a bill of rights that includes among other things provisions institutionalizing key elements from neohumanism and PROUT. For example, the concept of universalism from neohumanism would find expression in a constitutional guarantee of the right to existence for plants and animals. This notion actually presaged current movements calling for the rights of nature (Hillebrecht and Berros, 2017).
A right to minimum necessities for all people is found in PROUT and would be protected by a constitutional provision requiring all countries to guarantee adequate purchasing power to all citizens by assuring adequately paying work for all. Such rights would be justiciable, thereby giving people the right to sue the government to enforce them (Shekhara, 2023). This distinguishes Sarkar’s constitutional structure from other aspirational statements like the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights that do not have enforcement mechanisms (United Nations, 1948).
Economic decentralization and economic democracy
In Sarkar’s model the world government would address political issues facing the globe. At the same time economic matters, including planning and implementation, would be dealt with in a decentralized manner by local governments and peoples, who know more about the problems and opportunities of their areas. People would be in charge of their own economic lives, a concept Sarkar called economic democracy. Here, the goal is to “remove all the impediments and obstacles which prevent the economic needs of the people being met. The universal aim of economic democracy is to guarantee the minimum requirements of life to all members of society” (Sarkar, 2025f, ¶12 ). Development of economic democracy removes the power of capitalists to manipulate markets to the benefit of the few and the detriment of the many. Indeed, Sarkar felt that the type of global systems he envisioned would not be possible in a capitalist economy, and he called for its replacement.
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Manifesting a new system
Current nation-states will resist such changes. Sarkar believed that local and national political leaders would be the prime obstacles to these efforts, since they would fear losing their own power (Sarkar, 2025e). Some supporters of world government have already experienced resistance from national governments (Martin, 2015). In this example the changes also include values related to economic systems, which will create another powerful source of resistance. At times the political and economic resistance may overlap. One instance can be seen in the recent U.S. National Security Presidential Memorandum/NSPM-7, which says that common indicia underlying violent, terroristic activities are anti-capitalist and anti-Christian beliefs (Curtis, Cotton, et.al., 2025) So, not only is the prospect of changing values a monumental task in itself, it would also have to take place in the face of resistance from powerful groups seeking to safeguard their own privilege.
Sarkar said that those wanting to undertake this task must mutually collaborate to undertake a constructive, service minded approach to the work. Those people wishing to overcome the obstacles and transform people’s natural skepticism about change will have to employ a variety of approaches. Inayatullah (2001) suggests several options including transforming personal awareness, identifying oneself with a larger reality, incorporating values found in neohumanistic education, and developing action-oriented approaches for promoting the new ideas and supporting practical change.
In his role as a macro-historian, Sarkar believed that society was becoming ready to positively respond to actions promoting such change. He saw society as being made up of four classes (varnas) of people with differing collective psychologies – workers, warriors, intellectuals, and capitalists (Inayatullah, 1990; Sarkar, 2025g). In Sarkar’s model called the Social Cycle, history progresses through eras dominated by different varnas. Each has its own set of values related to the corresponding psychological types. The early part of each era typically is more dynamic and over time momentum wanes and exploitation of the dominant varna increases. During such times change becomes more feasible. He suggests that many countries are now ripe for a new era (Sarkar, 2025h).
Sarkar (2025g) incorporated a variety of approaches to support the historical changes in a process he called nuclear revolution. In it, all aspects of collective life are transformed. New moral and spiritual values emerge. He believed that this type of revolution would create social progress and development, and he encouraged supporters of nuclear revolution to arouse positive sentiments in the people like universalism. He felt that this would inspire people to support change and provide them with confidence to do so.
In Sarkar’s model, nuclear revolution is fostered by a special kind of people he called sadvipras or true intellectuals. Sadvipras practice spiritual self-reflection, follow a strict code of morality, engage in all-round service to humanity, and fight against immorality (Sarkar, 2025i). They also lead efforts to promote the concept of world government among citizens of the world. Some countries of the world will support these efforts, while others will resist them in large part to protect the interests of current leaders. In the countries that resist, Sarkar believed that the people who support world government will become agitated and rise up to force their government to accept it (Sarkar, 2025e).
The transition from current global systems to a world government and an economic system designed for the upliftment of all people and the preservation of the environment will not be an easy one. It may take a long time, and to some it may seem impossible. At its heart though is the transformation of value systems from the current model which derives from materialistic, competitive values to one that is based on neohumanistic values that dignify spiritual, environmental, and collaborative aspects of humanity (Dhyaneshananda, 2024).
While Sarkar’s new values and models present a distinct approach to changing current systems, they can be challenged. On the one hand they may overstate the capacity of people to change large systems and at the same time understate the degree of resistance that will come from people currently in political and economic power. This combination could slow down or derail the large changes being discussed. A second key question is whether it would be possible to create enough selfless sadvipras to promote the changes required. Since they are still human, they may also be susceptible to being corrupted by outside influences or by their own quest for power. In this context, creating safeguards to protect against this would be essential to Sarkar’s change model.
How could large numbers of people come to adopt a new value system and work to make it a practical reality in society? While it would be hard to make these changes, several elements could help make it possible. There are already a significant number of people who respect the values that would help bring about a new model (Clifton and Ray, 2025; Jones, 2025). Richard Falk (2024), an international law professor and key member of the World Order Models Project, has suggested that support could come from organizations that constitute what he called global civil society. These would include groups supporting concepts like environmental protection and restoration, women’s rights, economic justice, rights for indigenous peoples, and the like. While these groups share some common values, differences in focus have thus far made it difficult to bring them to come together as an integrated movement. More recently, Falk indicated that added support might be found in growing numbers of people who consider themselves spiritually minded, as opposed to religiously affiliated.
In addition, the crises described at the beginning of this article may cause more people to become open to new ideas and values. If the old models are causing increased suffering, there may come a point where people will listen to concepts that would not have traditionally been of interest to them. At the same time, there will be a need to persuasively promote new values in a logical manner. It will also be important to underscore the benefits of the new vision to promote a positive view of change. If the focus remains solely on problems and not on solutions, it could lead to a negative downwards spiral that could keep us stuck in current models that no longer work or bring about new systems that themselves worsen the situation because their values stem from negative perspectives.
Research suggests that only a relatively small percentage of a total population needs to be won over to make changes (Chenoweth, 2020). While this still represents a massive undertaking, it makes it appear more feasible. Sarkar (2025e) remained optimistic that it could be achieved. This view may seem naïve, but as an American politician recently said about facing down the seemingly impossible task of curbing violence and building unity, “[But] naiveté with some passion can change the world. It’s probably the only thing that ever has” (Pelley, 2025).
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