{"id":312017,"date":"2026-01-19T12:00:41","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T12:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=312017"},"modified":"2026-01-13T19:20:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T19:20:18","slug":"it-could-be-a-wonderful-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2026\/01\/it-could-be-a-wonderful-world\/","title":{"rendered":"It Could Be a Wonderful World"},"content":{"rendered":"

13 Jan 2026 – <\/em>There is a widening gap today between global possibilities and global realities.<\/p>\n

The possibilities are enormous, for\u2015thanks to a variety of factors, ranging from increases in knowledge to advances in economic productivity\u2015it\u2019s finally feasible for all of humanity to lead decent and fulfilling lives.<\/p>\n

No longer is poverty necessary, for the enormous global economy can produce adequate food, goods, and services for all the world\u2019s people.<\/p>\n

Human health and longevity can be improved substantially, thanks to breakthroughs in science and medicine.<\/p>\n

Education, communications, transportation, and culture have made huge strides toward enriching human existence and could finally be made available to all.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the rise of the United Nations and of international law holds the promise of moving beyond the violent, bloodstained past and securing peace, human rights, and justice on the international level.<\/p>\n

And yet, current realities fall far short of these possibilities.<\/p>\n

Despite some advances in countering worldwide poverty, it remains at a startlingly high level.\u00a0 According to the World Bank<\/a>, half of humanity lives on less than $6.85 per day per person, with over 700 million people living on less than $2.15 per day.<\/p>\n

Moreover, economic inequality is vast and increasing.\u00a0 A recently-released World Inequality Report<\/a>, produced in conjunction with the United Nations, found that, in almost every region of the world, the richest 1 percent is wealthier than the bottom 90 percent combined.\u00a0 Indeed, the richest 0.001 percent of the world\u2019s population controls three times the wealth of the poorest half, and its wealth is growing at a faster rate.<\/p>\n

As the charitable organization Oxfam has observed<\/a>, there is no morally defensible justification for this state of affairs.\u00a0 \u201cExtreme wealth is not accumulated simply as a reward for extreme talent,\u201d it has noted. \u00a0\u201cThe majority of billionaire wealth . . . is unearned, derived from inheritance, crony connections, and monopolistic power.\u201d\u00a0 Moreover, billionaires and giant corporations are fostering greater economic inequality and misery by opposing labor laws and policies that benefit workers, undermining progressive taxation, employing modern colonial systems of wealth extraction in the Global South, and using monopoly power to control markets and set the rules and terms of exchange.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, when it comes to respecting international law, the rulers of some powerful nations are behaving increasingly like gangsters.<\/p>\n

Donald Trump is particularly flagrant in this regard.\u00a0 During his second term as President of the United States, he has already bombed seven nations<\/a> (Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen), threatened to invade or seize five others<\/a> (Canada, Colombia, Cuba, Greenland, and Mexico ), blown up 33 foreign boats<\/a> and their sailors, kidnapped the president<\/a> of a sovereign nation (Venezuela), and announced plans to \u201crun\u201d Venezuela and take control of its vast oil resources<\/a>.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t need international law,\u201d he explained<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s \u201cAmerica First\u201d policy\u2015redolent of traditional great power imperialism\u2015is complemented by other measures showing contempt for key international institutions.\u00a0 Trump quickly withdrew the U.S. government<\/a> from leading UN agencies like the World Health Organization and the UN Human Rights Council, refused to participate in the UN Relief and Works Agency, and announced plans to withdraw from UNESCO.\u00a0 On January 7, 2026, the White House followed up by announcing U.S. withdrawal<\/a> from 66 international and UN entities.\u00a0 It has also withheld at least two years of mandated dues to the UN\u2019s regular budget and has placed sanctions<\/a> on the judges and chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.<\/p>\n

Clearly, Trump has other priorities.\u00a0 He dramatically increased U.S. military spending soon after he returned to power and, in January 2026, proposed raising military spending by another $600 billion<\/a> to a record $1.5 trillion, thereby creating his \u201cDream Military.\u201d\u00a0 Apparently, this dream does not include ending the menace of nuclear annihilation, for\u2015asked about renewing the last nuclear arms control agreement remaining with Russia, scheduled to expire next month\u2015Trump responded<\/a>:\u00a0 \u201cIf it expires, it expires.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, leaders of other nations are also working full-time to destroy what remains of international law and humanity\u2019s hopes for the future.<\/p>\n

Vladimir Putin has stopped at nothing to revive what he considers Russia\u2019s imperial glory by waging nearly four years of war to conquer and annex his far smaller, weaker neighbor, Ukraine.\u00a0 Ignoring strong condemnations by the UN General Assembly<\/a>, the International Court of Justice<\/a>, and the International Criminal Court<\/a>, Putin has pressed on with an imperialist war that has reduced cities to rubble<\/a>, damaged or destroyed thousands of schools and health care facilities<\/a>, and sent 6 million Ukrainians fleeing abroad<\/a>.\u00a0 The wounded or dead number hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians<\/a> and as many as 1.2 million Russian soldiers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Nor is this the extent of Putin\u2019s military interventionism.\u00a0 Until quite recently, he conducted a brutal bombing campaign for nearly a decade<\/a> in Syria to prop up the Assad dictatorship against its domestic foes.\u00a0 He also employed the Wagner Group<\/a>, a shadowy private mercenary army headquartered in Russia, to conduct military operations elsewhere in the Middle East and in numerous African nations.<\/p>\n

Like Trump, Putin has scrapped nuclear arms control agreements<\/a> and occasionally threatened nuclear war<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Other national rulers, enamored with military power and widening their realms, have also turned their countries into rogue nations.\u00a0 Kim Jong Un, despite offers from the South Korean and U.S. governments to improve diplomatic relations, has chosen instead to dramatically expand North Korea\u2019s nuclear arsenal<\/a>, threaten nuclear war<\/a>, and dispatch more than 14,000 combat troops<\/a> to help Russia subdue Ukraine.\u00a0 Benjamin Netanyahu, while constantly claiming Israel\u2019s victimization, has in fact superintended a genocidal slaughter of Palestinian civilians<\/a>, staged military attacks on numerous nations<\/a>, and\u2015in defiance of a ruling by the International Court of Justice<\/a>\u2015refused to end Israel\u2019s decades-long occupation of Palestinian territory.<\/p>\n

Although it\u2019s tragic that powerful forces seem intent on building an unjust, lawless, and violent planet, let\u2019s not forget that another world remains possible.\u00a0 Indeed, with an organized international effort, it could be a wonderful world<\/a>.<\/p>\n

________________________________________________<\/p>\n

Lawrence S. Wittner (<\/em>https:\/\/www.lawrenceswittner.com\/<\/em><\/a> ) is Professor of History Emeritus at SUNY\/Albany and the author of <\/em>Confronting the Bomb<\/em><\/a> (Stanford University Press).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

13 Jan 2026 – There is a widening gap today between global possibilities and global realities. The possibilities are enormous, for\u2015thanks to a variety of factors, ranging from increases in knowledge to advances in economic productivity\u2015it\u2019s finally feasible for all of humanity to lead decent and fulfilling lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":79666,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[307,75],"class_list":["post-312017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-focus","tag-humanity","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312017"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":312018,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312017\/revisions\/312018"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}