Digging Out: Global Crisis and the Search for a New Social Contract

In hard times, dissention mounts.
The old social contract flounders and cannot be revived.
Reaction asserts itself.
Rising forces seek liberation.
Danger and risk intensify.
Opportunity beckons.

Such is our time. In Digging Out—Global Crisis and the Search for a New Social Contract, two brothers from the social and environmental justice movements open the debate over the next social contract, identifying its strategic aims and political agenda. Theirs is a revolutionary proposal rooted in the power dynamics of the world's rising service-based economy.

The brothers provide a theoretical framework to reinterpret and address festering world problems through local-global initiative. They urge cultural invigoration to redeploy our skills and innovation in service to others—and, therein, to ourselves as well. Their proposal confirms the leading role of civil society. They call for a global commercial transactions fee to curb financial speculation while adequately and permanently funding global problem-solving for everyone.

Digging Out proposes a new social contract to advance economic security, social justice and ecological restoration worldwide. It is a clarion call, urging us to unite and demand the changes necessary for a better tomorrow.