Measuring Success in a NEW Society

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By Day Piercy

A NEW society builds personal wellbeing and public good and measures success by progress in nurturing everyone’s wellbeing

A NEW society builds local-global connections, people-to-people and community-to-community programs that promote local and global wellbeing and sustainability.

A NEW society’s vision is a society where everyone lives his and her creative potential.

How would we measure success in this society.

We would assess whether everyone has food, shelter, and clothing. We would measure our health, housing, education, arts and culture, economic wellbeing and security and human services throughout the lifespan. We would assess how we are doing in creating safety and peace in our homes, on our streets and in the world. We would measure economic opportunity, security and justice, personal freedom and civil liberties. We would assess nature’s health and the viability of our communities and their infrastructure, our families and social connections.

We would determine how we are doing in making sure that people are free to develop their skills and talents and that we have time for personal and family life, time to care for and nurture each other, the children and elders.

We would measure the quality of our land, air and water, the availability of parks and open spaces, and our capacity to sustain the environment and our communities.

We would assess government’s role and performance and how we are doing both locally and globally. We would measure our progress in building a society where everyone lives his and her creative potential, and we all are stewards of the present and the future for generations to come.

We would view these measurements not as a fantasy to be ridiculed but as real life possibilities that we have the expertise to implement. We would use these measurements to make decisions about how to allocate our resources, invest our money and engage everyone in civic initiatives and campaigns to do even better. The people would be builders of a NEW society that nurtures everyone's wellbeing.

We now have the knowledge and expertise to create these community-centered, people-centered nature-centered, local-global measures. We humans have developed a powerful intelligence and ability to build a NEW society that nurtures everyone’s wellbeing.