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The Global Marshall Plan is a plan
for all the world’s people to work in
solidarity to eliminate poverty once
and for all and to heal the environmental
crisis.

The Global Marshall Plan takes its
name from the post-World War II
Marshall Plan, a massive and successful
project to provide aid to Western
European countries—including Germany,
which had been our antagonist
in the war. Historians have debated
how altruistic the plan was. Some
argue that a large part of the motivation
for the original Marshall Plan was
to strengthen capitalist economies in
Europe to prevent them from becoming Communist.

A similar motive to prevent the world from devolving into
terrorist-generated chaos might inspire some who will join our efforts for
a Global Marshall Plan. But other historians point to the strong strands of
generosity that were tapped when Americans embraced rebuilding the devastated
lives of the defeated nations against which they had just waged war.
This was enlightened self-interest, and it can ally with strong altruistic tendencies
that persist in Americans and many others around the world, this
time mobilized to combat the suffering of humanity that leads to destructive
wars, violence and ecological irresponsibility.

The spirit of generosity that is needed for a Global Marshall Plan has fallen
victim to the rise of fear and looking out for number one that has dominated
American politics in the last thirty years. Today, while other wealthy
countries do poorly enough by giving only 30 cents in aid per $100 of income
in their countries, the U.S. does even worse: it gives only 17 cents per
$100 of income. The Right has successfully convinced many Americans
that we are giving a huge part of our budget to aid—but the facts are quite
the opposite.

The Global Marshal Plan should, among others:

- Provide enough funding to eliminate
domestic and global poverty,
homelessness, hunger, inadequate
education and inadequate
health care, plus repair the global
environment.
- Create an international, unbiased, nongovernmental agency for receiving
the funds (from both foreign aid and alternative sources of
financing) and distributing them in a way that is environmentally
sensitive, respectful of native cultures, safeguarded against corruption,
protected from manipulation to serve elite interests, and
empowering of the people in each region.
- Revise trade agreements in which the U.S. is currently involved so
that they no longer privilege the most powerful and economically
successful Western countries and the elites of other countries at the
expense of the poor of the world.
- Ensure hands-on involvement
from peoples of the world
through an International Peace
and Generosity Corps.
- Fund trained, unarmed, civilian peace teams such as the Nonviolent
Peaceforce to intervene in areas of conflict.
- Train everyone on the planet in
techniques of nonviolent communication,
diversity, environmental
sustainability, family and parental
support, stress reduction, emergency
health techniques, diet and
exercise, and caring for others who
are in need of help.
- Empower girls.
- Ensure that the local village communities
feel empowered by the
programs being introduced.