A war on terror will ensure national security. More nuclear plants will reduce oil dependence and slow climate change. The genetics of nature can be rewritten to feed the world. Human cells can be cultivated to cure disease.

Really? At one time the US adopted a precautionary principle toward industry and technological development, which put the onus on corporations to show their products and processes were safe. This led to progressive legislation, like the Clean Air and the Clean Water Acts in the 1970s. Since Reagan, however, the regulatory trend has been reversed in favor of short-term corporate solutions offering short-term corporate gains.

The corporate-driven philosophy that has come to dominate American public policy also focuses on risk, but turns it on its head. No longer is risk framed in terms of public health and the environment, but economic progress. According to this progress principle, to turn back breakthroughs in science and technology would destroy the culture of innovation that has made America great, not to mention an economic superpower. And even worse, sooner or later a technological solution will be needed to save humankind and it won’t be there. If we could not have defeated Hitler with conventional means, the H-bomb could easily have become just such a scenario. These arguments have great influence and in the US, as opposed to the EU, have created a carteblanche business environment where ends now justify virtually any means.

As one set of risks and fears is pitted against another, what becomes clear is that there are risks on all sides – the risk of doing nothing and the risk of doing the wrong thing. Knowing the risks and determining with absolute certainty how great they are is a valid quest, but not the solution. Instead, we need a democratizing of the problem – call it a people principle: civil society must reclaim its power to assess our uncertain, at-risk future.

At present, the rights of corporations are well developed and expanding, at the expense of the rights of the public. While the corporation has been legislated to personhood, the everyday citizen has been reduced to a voiceless peasant in a corporate kingdom. Reversing this means recoding the system in favor of direct democracy.

An activist democracy is the only way to create a viable future. Why? Because it is the only way to create and preserve an ethos of the "public good." Perhaps what is needed is not a philosophy that encourages us to adapt to desperate circumstances, assessing the risks along the way, but a newly framed ethos that pushes us to resolve these circumstances. Instead of drugs that treat cancer, AIDS, and depression, we need a public-health approach that puts prevention first. Instead of new weapons and missile-defense systems, we need national and international organizations that ensure diplomacy and peace come first. Instead of GM foods, we need a new global approach toward third world poverty, education, and food that puts people and respect for human life first. Of course none of this will be possible as long as the world’s solutions are corporate driven, in terms of “expected utility” and “acceptable risks,” instead of people driven, in terms of the “public interest” and the “collective good.” If a people principle sounds romantic or far-fetched, then it’s clear where the process must begin - by raising awareness and pushing one another toward greater public responsibility.

This is already underway. Whatever your view of GM foods or stem-cell research, these highly politicized realms are being challenged and influenced by public citizen groups. These lay groups have acquired considerable knowledge of the issues and have mobilized pressure for and against these technologies. As this expands in scale, a quiet revolution will unfold. Professional politics will wither and the power of the people will grow. No longer will there be corporate control of the scientific method, or corporate control over the ways and means of technology. Finally, civil society will cage corporate power and get the monkey off our back.

Dick Harrington