by Karl Baumann
There is a long history of “liberalism” and “freedom” within the “western” understanding of a “good” society. To develop a healthy and thus sustainable society, these concepts are outdated.
“Freedom” is a linear concept, which demands a “freedom from”. And “freedom from” is already unfree or even hostile. Freedom finds itself as a battle against something or even someone. There are many wars, if not all of them, rooted in the “fight for freedom”.
“Liberalism”, mostly within the context of economic liberalism, aims for a “free market” and is based on the assumption, a “perfect market” is a fully liberal market without any political intervention. Today we understand, a “perfect market” is utopian and a “liberal market” is a status of war, without direct physical force involved but with all other forms of rivalry. And this rivalry triggered by “liberalism” demolishes solidarity within our society and the ability for collaboration within politics, business, and research.
Out of a psychological perspective, perfectionism is a clearly sick trait and people working within liberalised markets tend to perfectionism and with that are susceptible to all kinds of addictions (e.g. to cope with stress).
In strong contraction to that, a healthy mind and a healthy body works towards her or his contentedness and well-being. Within medicine, this process is call “salutogenesis” (cf. Aaron Antonovsky).
A healthy society works towards collective contentedness and well-being. A healthy global society decides and acts based on this on local and global level.
The process of “salutogenesis” demands almost exactly the opposite traits and values than becoming free, liberated, or perfect.
Health and well-being in the sense of “salutogenesis” demands
- responsibility (mostly opposed to freedom):
A person, who takes on responsibility is a basically very unfree person, since the person relates to and stands for its responsibility for a child, a friendship, a love and relationship, an organisation, et al. (cf. e.g. Michael J. Sandel).
- discipline (mostly opposed to freedom):
A person, who keeps day-in and day-out a disciplined lifestyle, needs to be well organised and demands to stay aware with his or her activities (e.g. cf. Erich Fromm).
- involvement (mostly opposed to freedom):
For a person promoting health and well-being, the active social interaction is most important. Relationships and friendships demand the interaction with different people within society. Democracy supports and also demands that kind of social involvement, at least with voting. We are always part of a society, even living alone on a “holy island”, you would e.g. experience the impact from global warming. A “sense of community” is most important for a healthy person and thus for a healthy society (cf. e.g. Alfred Adler).
- dialogue (mostly opposed to freedom):
Whenever living within a “system” of people, there will be to some extend a conflict. A healthy way of dealing within such a social society and its conflicts is via communication about different wishes and desires with a loving, caring, and emphatic language (cf. e.g. Marthall B. Rosenberg).
A healthy (global) society is a never ending process towards collective contentedness and well-being, according to “salutogenesis”. Within a globalised economy, this process demands a globalised politics. The healthy way for such a globalised politics is global (direct) democracy.
read about our ongoing research projects:
The new healthy global society
The new healthy global economy
Trans- & interdisciplinary global warming scenario
read our latest research papers:
2026/03
How global warming will affect global population – a first theory
2026/03
From geopolitical fragmentation to a healthy global economy: A call for systemic renewal
2026/02
The philosophy of a healthy and thus sustainable (global) society
2025/12
The new way to successful mitigation of global warming
2024/04
First trans- and interdisciplinary global warming scenario
2024/04
Temperature rise will be exponential
2024/04
Temperature rise shows ca. 30 years delay