The Life-Value Manifesto: Overcoming the Deep-Rooted Pathologies of the Global War State | Gemini & NotebookLM

This monograph provides a comprehensive decoding of the modern “War State” through the dual lenses of Life-Value Onto-Axiology (LVOA) and Peace Research. By synthesizing the economic and moral philosophy of John McMurtry with the psychological and sociological frameworks of Johan Galtung, the authors identify a systemic “life-blindness” driving global conflict. The work unmasks the subconscious scripts of Chosenness, Manicheism, and Armageddon that legitimize the destruction of the “Life-Ground” — the essential social and ecological requirements for human survival. Ultimately, the manifesto proposes a shift from a “Money-Sequence” economy to a “Life-Coherent” system anchored in the Civil Commons and Planetary Solvency.

From Life-Ground to Life-Value: The Enduring Legacy of John McMurtry and the Future Potential of Humanity | ChatGPT4o

This paper offers a critical reflection on the legacy of Canadian philosopher John McMurtry, grounded in the commemorative volume Ten Essays in Honour of John McMurtry (Northwest Passage Books, 2024), edited by Jeff Noonan and Giorgio Baruchello. At the heart of McMurtry’s thought lies Life-Value Onto-Axiology (LVOA), a universal evaluative framework that defines value in terms of life-capacity enablement. Synthesizing insights from the Festschrift’s contributors, this paper argues that McMurtry’s work represents not only a diagnosis of systemic life-blindness in contemporary institutions, but a regenerative logic for planetary and civilizational renewal. His core axiom, that nothing can be of value unless it serves life, offers both a moral compass and a design principle for an increasingly fragmented world.

From Colonial Sustainability to Life-Coherence: A Life-Value Onto-Axial Regrounding | ChatGPT4o

This white paper offers a paradigm-shifting critique of the global sustainability industry through the evaluative and philosophical lens of Life-Value Onto-Axiology (LVOA). It argues that the prevailing sustainability regime, despite its aspirational rhetoric, is structurally embedded in colonial, extractive, and technocratic systems that continue to disable life capacities across ecological, cultural, and political domains.

Building on the groundbreaking analysis in Colonial Sustainability (Sayson et al., 2024) and practitioner reflections such as Bjørkskov’s We Can’t Manage Decline and Call It Justice, the paper diagnoses five domains of systemic life-incoherence — ecological, economic, cultural, technocratic, and political. It then articulates a life-coherent alternative rooted in LVOA, including principles for regenerative design, bioregional governance, communal sovereignty, and systems transformation.

This is not a reformist proposal but a life-centered civilizational pivot: from greenwashed empire to biocultural regeneration. It calls for the hospicing of dominant sustainability paradigms and the seeding of coherent futures grounded in reciprocity, responsibility, and relational repair.

Toward a Life-Coherent Foreign Policy: A Life-Value Onto-Axiological Critique and Regenerative Framework for U.S. Global Engagement | ChatGPT4o

This white paper presents a rigorous critique of United States foreign policy through the lens of Life-Value Onto-Axiology (LVOA) — a normative ethical framework that grounds all value in the capacity to sustain, develop, and protect life systems. Drawing from philosophical foundations, empirical case studies, and interdisciplinary insights, the paper reveals how prevailing U.S. foreign policy practices — including militarism, sanctions, regime change, and ecological negligence — consistently undermine human and ecological life-capacity across the globe.

Using LVOA’s Primary Axiom of Value — that which enables life is good, and that which disables it is not — we assess historical and ongoing policy failures across six domains: war and militarization, economic warfare, sovereignty violations, climate inaction, human rights double standards, and cultural imperialism. Each domain is examined through detailed case studies, revealing structural patterns of harm, destabilization, and long-term incoherence.

The paper then advances a comprehensive set of principles for regenerative foreign policy, including mutual life-flourishing, civil commons investment, reparative diplomacy, biocentric security, relational sovereignty, and intergenerational justice. It offers actionable policy recommendations — short, mid, and long-term — to guide the transition toward a life-coherent global engagement strategy.

In conclusion, the paper argues that only by reorienting U.S. foreign policy toward life-value coherence can the nation recover its moral credibility, fulfill its global responsibilities, and provide ethical leadership in an age of planetary interdependence. A regenerative foreign policy is not only ethically necessary — it is strategically imperative.

THE CANCER STAGE OF CAPITALISM REVISITED: FROM SEMIOTIC AUTOIMMUNITY TO LIFE-SYSTEMIC HEALING | CHATGPT4o

This work revisits and radically extends John McMurtry’s diagnosis of capitalism as a systemic cancer — one that has metastasized across the human body, society, and planet. Through the lens of Life-Value Onto-Axiology, we diagnose late-stage civilization as suffering from a breakdown in its semiotic immune system — the cultural and symbolic capacities that once discerned what serves life from what destroys it. The result is a civilization that mistakes pathology for progress, monetizes its own life-support systems, and attacks its commons in a state of autoimmune collapse.

We propose a regenerative alternative: a transition to a Pulse Civilization, one that pulses in coherence with the rhythms of life, guided by a universal Life-Value Compass across four interdependent domains — vital integrity, social coherence, ecological synchrony, and temporal stewardship. Central to this transition is the design of LifeCoin, a regenerative public currency that funds civil commons and life-support systems based on real-time life-capacity indicators rather than profit or scarcity.

This manuscript offers a full systems diagnosis and treatment plan: composting obsolete institutions, restoring public trust through symbolic coherence, and revitalizing collective intelligence through distributed governance and bioregional feedback. It invites the integration of ritual, story, body, and policy into a living immune response — one capable of healing civilization from within and guiding the emergence of a life-valuing future.