A balance paradigm for post-plutocracy: Toward sustainable development with integral harmony

Abstract

For a sustainable human future, a rapid paradigm shift is a must from the prevailing “Explosion Paradigm” to a more reasonable “Balance Paradigm” by means of constantly enriching the existing diverse society-specific holistic cultures (“Cultures”). This means inviting a new age of balanced and integrated socio-economic systems worldwide with the help of the most important human common property—diverse Cultures. Generally speaking, each Culture has been deeply interwoven with its social value system, belief system, natural-social environments, and experience-based knowledge and wisdom. Such Cultures all over the world, however, have been mostly devastated by the modern ideology of lopsided market fundamentalism (“Market”) that has favored the plutocracy-driven power structure (“Big Market”) of the world. In order to seek a sustainable future by achieving the paradigm shift, the devastated diverse Cultures need to be restored, invigorated and enriched by long-term worldwide collaborations. For such a purpose, we cannot rely totally on the existing line of modern thoughts and theories of economics and other disciplines. Therefore, the present article introduces an alternative theoretical framework of balanced socio-economic development, which is argued for on the assumption of respectively and differently enriched diverse Cultures.