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HOW TO BUILD A WORLD OF PEACE AMONG NATIONS AND OF HUMAN
PROGRESS
Fernando Alcoforado *
The Enlightenment is the name given to the ideology that was being developed and built
by the bourgeoisie in Europe from the revolutionary struggles of the late eighteenth
century whose central themes were related to Freedom, Progress and the Man. The
Enlightenment was intended to correct the inequalities of society and secure the natural
rights of the individual, such as freedom and free possession of property. The origins of
the Enlightenment were already in the seventeenth century, in the work of René
Descartes, who laid the foundations of rationalism as the only source of knowledge.
The Enlightenment gave the slogan of the French Revolution (Liberty, Equality and
Fraternity) and fertilized it in that his followers were opposed to injustice, religious
intolerance and privileges of absolutism. In economics, the Enlightenment manifests
completely opposed to any government intervention in economic life and intransigent
defense of free labor as a source of wealth and market-driven economy, that is, by the
law of supply and demand.
From the French Revolution to the present time, the promises of the Enlightenment
were abandoned around the world with the adoption of imperialist practices by the
bourgeoisie and the governments of the major capitalist powers associated with them,
triggering three world wars (World War 1, World War 2 and the Cold War), the advent
of fascism and Nazism, the performance of military interventions and support for coups
in several countries of the capitalist periphery. The goal of Enlightenment thinkers such
as Voltaire, Montesquieu and Rousseau, it was the pursuit of human happiness, the
rejection of injustice and privileges it was replaced by barbarism that characterizes the
evolution of capitalism from the eighteenth century to the present era.
Capitalism failed entirely in achieving theses of Enlightenment since the French
Revolution, the English Revolution and the American Revolution. This failure paved
the way for the advent of socialist ideology throughout the world, through socialist
revolutions in Russia in 1917, China in 1949, Cuba in 1959 and in other countries they
intended to take a step forward in relation to Capitalism and Enlightenment seeking the
end of exploitation of man by man, to control the means of production by the state and
the realization of human progress. It should be noted that socialism is the generic name
for socioeconomic theories, ideologies and political practices that posit the reduction of
economic inequalities between social classes and in the future, its complete abolition.
The multiple variants of socialism as utopian socialism, social democracy and scientific
socialism (Marxist socialism) and anarchism, share a common base which is the
transformation of the capitalist economic system based on private ownership of the
means of production, in a new and different order social. To characterize a socialist
society, it is necessary to be present social ownership of the means of production, the
monopoly of foreign trade and economic planning. One consequence of this change in
the long term would be the end of wage labor and the replacement of the market for a
management or socialized planned economy, in order to adapt production to the
economic needs of the population, so getting to communism.
However, the old socialist project as it was built in the Soviet Union and other countries
turned into state capitalism, with political power exercised by a despotic, corrupt

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bourgeoisie of new type (bourgeois of state or Nomenclature). The proletariat, on whose
behalf it was made socialist revolution did not have the power and the population did
not participate in the decisions of governments. The counter anti-socialist world
revolution that led to the demise of the Soviet Union and the socialist system in Eastern
Europe opened the way for the expansion of capitalism to all corners of the world,
including China which joined to capitalism not to suffer the fate of the ex- Soviet
Union.
The facts of history show that the Enlightenment theories that guided in the eighteenth
century bourgeois revolutions and the socialist theories upon which were held socialist
revolutions in the twentieth century failed because they did not fulfill their promises
historic achievement of human happiness. With the failure of capitalism to carry out the
promises of the Enlightenment and the Socialism in the conquest of human progress,
humanity is faced nowadays with the challenge of building a new society project to
guide its path towards the future.
It is time for humanity to provide the most urgently needed instruments as possible to
take control of their destiny. To have control of your destiny mankind needs to build a
sustainable society in each country and globally that is one that meets the needs of the
present generation without diminishing the chances of future generations to meet theirs
needs, and deploy a world government that has the capacity to regulate the global
economy and rationalize the use of natural resources of the planet in the process of
exhaustion and thus contribute to building world peace. This is the only means of
survival of the human species.
The world government would aim to defend the general interests of the planet. He
would work towards every State to respect the rights of each citizen of the world
seeking to prevent the spread of the global systemic risks of an economic and
environmental. He would avoid the empire of one country and anarchy of all countries.
Economic, financial, ecological, social, and political crises and the development of
illegal and criminal activities today show the urgency of a world government. One must
understand that the world market cannot function properly without the rule of
international law that cannot be applied and respected in the absence of a world
government that is accepted by all countries. A world government will only have
legitimacy and be sustainable if it is truly democratic.
Mankind has to understand who has everything to gain by uniting around a democratic
world government above the interests of each nation, including the most powerful,
controlling the world in its entirety, in time and space. The new world order must be
built not only to organize the relations among men on Earth, but also their relationship
with nature. It is necessary, therefore, to be celebrated a global social contract that
allows the economic and social development and rational use of nature's resources for
the benefit of all mankind. The building of a new world order based on these principles
is urgent. It is urgent to think about it before it's too late.
* Alcoforado, Fernando, engineer and doctor of Territorial Planning and Regional Development from the
University of Barcelona, a university professor and consultant in strategic planning, business planning,
regional planning and planning of energy systems, is the author of Globalização (Editora Nobel, São
Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova (Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo,
1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do
desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado. Universidade de Barcelona,
http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel,
São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era

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Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of the Economic and Social
Development-The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Muller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG,
Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe Planetária (P&A Gráfica e Editora,
Salvador, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e combate ao aquecimento global
(Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011) and Os Fatores Condicionantes do
Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012), among others.