Principles

Equality of persons, and inviolability of basic human rights: New Earth re-affirms and adheres to the principles advanced by the so-called "international bill of rights." It seeks to advance the full realization of these rights in the lives of all people. It also seeks to promote increased understanding and ongoing exploration and clarification of human rights among the diverse cultures and peoples of the world.

Universal and self-reinforcing capacity for good: New Earth affirms that all persons are born with the capacity for good, by which is meant an ability to develop an awareness of and concern for the influence of their actions on the well-being of others. It further affirms that this capacity for good is realized and strengthened throughout our lives when we participate in relationships of mutual benefit with other people. Thus, when family members act with love towards one another, each becomes more capable and desirous of acting with love towards one another and towards the wider community. Likewise, participation for community good builds the skills and desire to do more with and for the community.

Voluntary action: From principles 1 and 2, New Earth is entirely non-coercive in nature, and asserts that lasting universal well-being will be realized and maintained not through compulsory redistribution of wealth or resources, but rather through facilitating voluntary and mutually beneficial actions that reinforce our desire and ability to engage in them over time.

Development from within: Centuries of experience make it clear that one-directional "assistance," while necessary in emergencies, undermines rather than promotes development when it becomes institutionalized. Assistance proceeds from - and unfortunately tends to perpetuate - a situation of separate "haves" and "have-nots," breeding dependence and undermining the long-term capabilities, pride, self-reliance and strength of its recipients. The New Earth alternative to "development assistance" is to create a pool of resources (financial/physical as well as informational) into which all peoples voluntarily contribute and from which all can voluntarily withdraw, on an equal per-capita basis, that enable self-directed, capacity-building development by enabling spontaneous creation of arrangements among parties who are by definition equal in worth, diverse in capabilities, and unlimited in potential.

Pluralism: New Earth embodies the conviction that no single point of view held by an individual or organization can fully reflect reality; rather, continuously improved solutions and understandings come from continuous exploration and from synthesis of different viewpoints. The classic analogy for pluralism is the fable of a group of blind men who encounter an elephant and argue about what they have encountered: the man at the tail says it's a rope, the man at the leg says it's a tree, etc. The blind men arrive at a better understanding by synthesizing their individual understandings, each making his own unique contribution while receiving the input of others to help each liberate himself from an unavoidably limited view. Pluralism also suggests that the result of each such synthesis as again only a partial understanding, a solution ever pregnant with the potential for further improvement.

Unfolding, Becoming, Openness: All components of New Earth should promote learning and unfolding or evolution of the participating individuals and organizations, and of the New Earth components themselves. Unfolding requires the interplay of two mechanisms: innovation and selection. Therefore, the design of New Earth must stimulate innovation, and provide processes for selection among innovations. The Better & Better program and the funding of recipient-designed development projects across four areas of endeavor (see below) drive innovation, while the Peer Review system selects for ever-increasing effectiveness. In New Earth, anything goes as long as it adheres to the six principles and achieves results; and selection is based on the principles and upon effectiveness in practice in a given context, rather than promoting any one ideology about "what works" in general.