Why TurningPoints?

The world is facing an unprecedented growth of the world population and at the same time realising that there are limits to material growth and consumption.

This biologically unsustainable and socially conflict-prone situation is left to political and economical ideas which were developed in the 17th century. We have to realise that they cannot produce answers and efficient practical solutions to the present day global situation, when it comes to sustainability, basic human needs, job creation and social-economic security.

What can we do?

The big challenge is to come up with both balanced and practical answers to these profound and practical challenges:

• We cannot expand material growth to more sustainability. We have to Re-distribute and share!
• We cannot compete to less inequality. We have to cooperate!
• We cannot regard humans as means to ends. We have to humanise!
• We cannot force humans to peace. We have to mediate!

If we do not react and change our basic ideas and practical everyday lives in a situation like this, the lines of social divide and intense poverty will deepen, and this will in turn result in social unrest, violence and migration for better opportunities in the structurally weak cities. This migration will lead to more hard policing, which will not solve the problems, but lead to more direct violence, and the escalation spiral of violence will then transform the national migrant to an international refugee.

So, we have to come up with ways to prevent this escalation of violence. This could be in new ways of producing goods and new ways of sharing the profits. And we also have to come up with ways to create common social security and trust.

How can we do that?

TurningPoints has developed a new concept of company-creation that will not only deliver jobs at a properly geared pace, but will do so in a way that will benefit people in need in a sustainable way, without destroying precious resources and nature.

We call it: ‘Pass It On’

A Pass It On is not a socialist state-supported business, it is not a capitalist private business either; and it is not a cooperative in the original form - we have added some extra principles. We have created a new business model in order to meet demands from nature, human beings and economy.

The 5 principles of a Pass It On are the following:

• Pass It On! Every Pass It On must start 3 new Pass It On (learning to build security, trust and meaning)
• The Meeting! Every Pass It On must rest on local expressed needs found through open meetings (sustain and create cultural diversity and democracy)
• The Limit! Every Pass It On must work for local production and consumption to become sustainable in relation to climate, biodiversity and social diversity
• The Ombudsperson! Every Pass It On must develop capacity to good leadership and conflict resolution (human beings are not commodities - human sustainability)
• Not for Sale! A Pass It On can not be sold as it is part of a local community's expressed needs

The purpose of these principles are to speed up and spread economic growth; to create local ownership and support; to reduce monocultural production, thus helping both biodiversity and cultural diversity; to bolster already good capacities for leadership and conflict resolution; and to stabilise local development by keeping created values in the local community.

Development will, however, not take place if it is met with no social order, with mistrust and with violence.

So, to create a social economical growth process the police must be included. The name 'Police' is derived from the greek word 'politeia' which meant 'the good prosperous order'. Logically, the police of today must return to this understanding and take on the task to help the social development to become a good social order in which people thrive and prosper.

The economy needs social order and the police needs the economy. The lack of this balance has the same effect on the over-all economy as a civil war.

Alas, the police which is supposed to deal with these social tasks, is in many countries wrongly recruited, under-staffed, under-educated and under-paid. The result is inefficient policing and mistrust between population and police. Thus, in many places we see no security, no development and no economical growth.

The Idea, The Strategy, The Program and the Company

In TurningPoints, we modestly believe,wehave developed good answers to some of these balances, dilemmas and practical challenges. Please have a look: