The Progressives’ Creed:

What is a progressive? A progressive is a person who believes that the progress of humanity is to be measured by the betterment of the human condition for the largest proportion of people as possible and that politics should in all cases be used to better the human condition for all and to distribute the benefits of society equally so that individuals receive equal opportunities for education, work, and fulfillment and no class, group, or people are enriched at the detriment or exploitation of another.

1. Religion and the Secular State: As there are many paths up a mountain, the many religions are equally worthwhile. An individual needs to adopt a coherently definite religion, philosophy, ethic, or creed in order to focus his or her heart, mind, and energy along a single path of personal development. A society needs to respect and appreciate the many religions, philosophies, and creeds in order to allow its members to find the path that is most suitable for their individual attributes and personal evolution. The separation of religion and state is essential to the well being of both, in that no religion can avoid the perversion of its own goals or the oppression of other religions if it becomes the sole political power of a state.

2. Tribe, Caste, Race, & Ethnicity: All ancestries are equally valuable, and there is no biological or socially valid basis for asserting that one tribe, caste, race, or ethnicity is superior to another or should hold privileges over another.

3. Environment: The maintenance of fertile earth, clean water, and breathable air are essential not only for human survival and our posterity but for the people’s well-being and happiness. The ecological commonweal requires that the environment have a highest priority in all political decision making and that environmental security and the prevention of environmental degradation must predominate in all considerations with as much care and concern as is given to national security.

4. Economics: Economic democracy is the balance between the economic anarchy of capitalism and the economic totalitarianism of historical communism. Economic democracy means a fair market system, neither a so-called “free” market nor a centrally controlled market. Economic democracy entails the democratic regulation and control of the economic system within society at two levels: first, democratically legislated state protective regulation (i.e., without the extremes of economic totalitarianism by state ownership or corporate control of the legislature) and, second, internal democratic control of corporations based on the valuable involvement of both workers and investors (i.e., rather than the plutocratic control by capital investors resulting in economic totalitarianism within the corporation and economic anarchy in the competition between corporations). There is no inherent contradiction between private property and economic democracy, but there is an important distinction to be made between ownership of private personal property and the ownership of the major natural resources and their means of production upon which society depends for its well-being. The state and its government bureaucracy need not own natural resources or the means of production but democratic government is always a proper regulator of the exploitation of natural resources and their means of production for the benefit of the people and their general welfare, not for the benefit of profiteering plutocrats.

5. Nationalism and Internationalism: Nationalism and internationalism both have their place, but the harmful extremes of nationalism and internationalism are to be avoided. Nations and states are essential in the organization of common interests in geographical areas. Beneficial nationalism is the recognition of the people of a nation to be sovereign in the democratic control of their nation. However harmful nationalism is a perversion of national pride that asserts the superiority of one’s own nation over another to the detriment of international cooperation. Beneficial internationalism recognizes that international human interaction is necessary for the benefit of the peoples of all nations and that no nation has the right to exploit the peoples of another nation. Harmful internationalism is an extreme that denigrates the sovereignty of the people of a nation and their right to self-determination. In all political decisions, the people’s beneficial national and international interests must be balanced.

6. Democracy: Tyranny comes in many forms, including despotism, tyranny by a minority, and tyranny by the majority, and all forms of tyranny are to be equally avoided. Democracy is the concurrence of the interests of society for the purpose of avoiding the various forms of tyranny by creating a system of governance that embodies six political principles: the people are sovereign, the people rule by laws not personalities, a majority decides the laws, the human and civil rights of minorities are protected, separation of powers within the state, checks and balances between the separated state powers. Democracy comes in many variations, for example a majority may decide the laws by direct or representative legislation, but if the system of governance does not effectively embody each and all of these six principles then it is not democracy.

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Alan Gregory Wonderwheel

wonderwheel@pon.net

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Written May 2004

Page last edited 2/18/08.