We are in the midst of an enormous transition from state-based anarchy to global governance. In times past, each sovereign territory sought advantage over its neighbors in the acquisition of resources. Over time the rules were changed and international treaties were forged to gain the valuable benefits of cooperation. But, just as women and blacks were denied 'inalienable rights' at the brink of a new democracy in the West, large numbers of people remain disenfranchised from the rewards of cooperation in our globalized economy.

Disparities of wealth have shaken the new world order, but its foundation remains fixed without the consent of modern-day pirates at the helm of multinational corporations. The global ecological crisis is changing all of this. Millions are getting organized. And even the Captains of Industry are beginning to recognize that ecological anarchy is bad for business.

Last week a group of 150 multinational corporations boldly declared that "a sufficiently ambitious, international and comprehensive legally-binding United Nations agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will provide business with the certainty it needs to scale up global investment in low-carbon technologies." The Prince of Wales Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change announced this position in their communiqué in advance of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali, Indonesia that begins this week.

This group – including heavy hitters like General Electric, Shell, and Nike – has more political clout than any national government. Indeed, the revolving door between public offices and private boardrooms has blurred the imaginary boundary between business and government. In many important respects, corporate governance has become the norm. Binding international agreements about carbon dioxide emissions, land-use practices, marine sanctuaries, and water conservation are a pipe dream without corporate participation.

This is where the Ecological Order makes its presence known. There has been anarchy – the absence of enforceable global law – throughout the entire birth cycle of globalization. International trade has a long history of power imbalance that draws wealth from poor to rich, simultaneously within and across national borders.

But this pattern cannot persist when the life-supports of exploitative markets falter. Desperation keeps the poor punching the clock in Third World sweatshops – and the system purrs in its horrific efficiency. Take away the essential component of top-down control – predictability – and the usurpers start singing a different tune. As we plunge forth into the 21st Century, natural cycles are becoming so volatile that long-term prediction is growing ever more tenuous. And multinational corporations are so large that they find it difficult to adapt quickly to dramatic change. No predictability, no adaptation. No adaptation, no control.

Only when rules are set in place that mandate cooperation will there be sufficient ability to plan ahead that investors can continue the game of economics. Laissez-faire ("free" trade) ideology is built on the notion that anarchy promotes flourishing. Take away the constraints designed to keep markets functioning and you can change the rules at will to your advantage. However, as any child playing games in the street can attest, there must be clearly defined rules in order to continue play.

The American philosopher, John Dewey, knew this all too well. He articulates the basis of social control that emerges in cooperative activities:

There are certain fairly obvious controlling features of such situations to which I want to call attention. The first is that the rules are part of the game. They are not outside of it. No rules, no game; different rules, then a different game. As long as the game goes on with a reasonable smoothness, the players do not feel that they are submitting to external imposition but that they are playing a game. In the second place an individual may at times feel that a decision isn't fair and he may even get angry. But he is not objecting to a rule but to what he claims is a violation of it. […] In the third place, the rules, and hence the conduct of the game, are fairly standardized. There are recognized ways of counting out, of selection of sides, as well as for positions to be taken, movements to be made, etc. - John Dewey, Experience & Education

It is time to change the rules of the game.

Prospects of mass migration, coastal flooding, storms and droughts do not bode well for stability. Economic flourishing – good jobs, high standards of living, healthy food, etc. – is inextricably bound to ecological flourishing.

I have written about this elsewhere:

We have been presented with a false dichotomy. Conservatives have framed the relationship between the environment and our economy as being in competition with each other, as though any gains for the environment are losses incurred by the economy. This is ironic considering the common ancestry of the words economy and ecology, both of which are based on the Greek root oiko which means "house."

Economics is about the management of the household. Our first experiences with the management of resources occur in the home. We share a finite amount of space that requires harmony and cooperation among family members. The need for privacy is balanced against the need for community space. Intuitively the law of supply and demand makes sense because it applies every time we sit down to the dinner table, especially when divvying up slices of pie.

The deep frames that inform this historical concept of economics are the same as the deep frames that inform ecology. The central message of environmentalism is that humanity has not managed the household of our society. We have soiled the beds we sleep in, poisoned the food we eat, and squandered the resources that our livelihood depends upon. It is an economic call to action. - Getting to the Root Cause of the Environmental Relationship to Economics

It is becoming ever more clear, even to corporate CEOs, that we are bound to the contexts in which we live out our lives. The emergent Ecological Order is a testament to what Jared Diamond articulated in his book about the role of environmental decline in societal collapse:

It has long been suspected that many of those mysterious abandonments were at least partly triggered by ecological problems: people inadvertently destroying the environmental resources on which their societies depend. […] The processes through which past societies have undermined themselves by damaging their environments fall into eight categories, whose relative importance differs from case to case: deforestation and habitat destruction, soil problems (erosion, salinization, and soil fertility loss), water management problems, over hunting, over fishing, effects of introduced species on native species, human population growth, and increased per capita impact on people. - Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

We must change the rules of the game if we are to survive. One rule, that economic growth is measured as an increase in material consumption, must be thrown out entirely. We need to redefine growth to reflect the way it works in living organisms. Yes, there is a period of growth where resources are consumed and the body grows. But for many creatures, including humans, a stage is reached where the body persists in size and new growth takes the form of increasing sophistication within it. More neural connections in the brain and greater behavioral complexity emerge in human development. If all goes well, our capacity to relate to others deepens.

This transition from one game to another is now upon us. The global 'body politic' is in the midst of a paradigm shift analogous to the psychological transition from self-centered to self-actualized. Our social institutions, especially those whose footprint can be seen across the planet, necessarily must be imbued with an ecological awareness if we are to keep from squashing ourselves.

The most powerful institutions we have, multinational corporations, have sounded the call for global governance. If we are mindful enough about the consequences of our collective actions, this may be a significant step toward healing the human world.