We want to make true-welfare choices the logical, affordable -and in the long run, unavoidable- thing to do for all.
An initiative to escape from a global dead-end street and provide a true-welfare pathway into the future
The True Welfare Foundation is born out of concern over the global challenges facing mankind and with the conviction that there is a better way forward. We are currently witnessing the negative effects of the unprecedented success of free-market capitalism world-wide during the last two decades. Billions of people from previously poor countries have become new consumers of services and products. This is good. Unfortunately these services and products are by and large made with unsustainable production methods. We, the 7 billion people on this planet, are (in 2012) consuming 150% of the resources earth can provide. Moreover, a global share-value-based profit drive has put pressure on human rights and labour conditions in vertically integrated supply chains. Continuation along this material welfare pathway into the future for the decades to come is -as we all know deep in our hearts- a dead-end street.
True welfare is achieved when communities live without fear and with confidence in the future.
Within communities each individual is treated fairly and gets opportunities to develop his/her talents.
It's time to start investing in hope for a true-welfare future
Those of us who live in Europe have witnessed how, in the short time span since the banking crisis in 2008, we have lost our previously unshakeable belief in the continuity of economic progress as the road to well-being and happiness. The European Union is still the richest region in the world in terms of GDP per capita, but our sense of true welfare has declined tremendously. We have become uncertain about our own economic livelihood and the future of our children. We begin to lose our faith in the social justice of our society; and we begin to fear a deepening of social tensions in our communities. It is time to end this slide into gloom. It is time to do things differently. It is time to start investing in a future we can trust to generate true welfare for all.
Max van der Sleen
Director
January 1st 2013