Press Release / G20 Counter-Summit Conclusions: "What We Need is System Change!"

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(presented in Moscow on Sept. 5, 2013)

Against the backdrop of this year’s G-20 summit in St. Petersburg, a crisis of extreme danger unfolds in the Middle East. We stand united in demanding that outside powers stop adding to the violence in Syria, and we specifically demand that the United States government refrain from military intervention instead of seeking peace. There is no way the threats to escalate violence could possibly improve the situation in Syria. It will only add to the suffering of the Syrian people.

We need a new path for a different and better future. Like nature, our alternatives are diverse and simultaneously happening in various levels: global, national and local.

We propose Climate Justice and Food Sovereignty, which require the complete overhaul of systems of unsustainable ways of production and consumption.

We call on people everywhere to join global campaigns, which are building these alternatives:

We call for a rebalancing away from forced monolithic globalization to a more wholesome revival of diversified localization. We must seek pragmatic paths toward a more sustainable management of resources. This will require regulation of markets and the flow of capital. However, implementation of these policies is blocked by the ideology of market fundamentalism. This can no longer be the foundation of our world economic order. What we need is:

A return to the regulating of world trade, finance and capital flows, along with the revising or annulling of the agreements concluded within the framework of the WTO;

Credit policy has to be aimed at stimulating development at the grass-roots level. New international financial institutions, able to cope with this task, have to be established.

New rules have to be drawn up for regulating international investments including the obligation to observe common environmental, social and labour standards;

Food policy has to be aimed at establishing direct ties between the producers and consumers of agricultural products;

Democracy becomes impossible to implement in practice when the taking of decisions concerning crucially important sectors such as financial services (including banking, the stock market, accounting and insurance); energy; education; health care; shipping; telecommunications; legal services; and transport is denied to the people whose lives depend on the outcomes in these areas.

We call for a broadening of the public sector of the economy, for the restoring of national economic sovereignty, and for democratic control by citizens over state institutions. During the past few decades this control, despite neo-liberal rhetoric about the advantages of democracy, has been systematically removed from organs accountable to citizens, depriving democracy of any concrete content.

WHAT WE NEED IS SYSTEM CHANGE !

More information
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