On Discourse
Rethinking the Meaning and Practice of Prosperity

The Baha'i International Community (BIC), an international non-governmental organization (NGO) that represents the global Baha'i community, works with the United Nations and a wide range of other NGO's around the world. The BIC works to promote universal human rights, the advancement of women and a "just and equitable means of global prosperity."

The BIC recently contributed a document, entitled "Rethinking Prosperity: Forging Alternatives to a Culture of Consumerism", to the United Nations 18th Commission on Sustainable Development. The document explores a principle-based view of the transformations required to ensure global prosperity rooted in an understanding of the nobility of the human spirit and the nature of justice, and offers what is, ultimately, an optimistic/realistic sense of the possibility for real change, concluding that, "As the sweeping tides of consumerism, unfettered consumption, extreme poverty and marginalization recede, they will reveal the human capacities for justice, reciprocity and happiness."

Click here to read the document.