Humans are living longer, healthier, wealthier, safer, and more peaceful lives than ever— not just in the Global North but in many regions around the world. And yet many feel that we are living in an era of crisis. The war in Syria and the millions of refugees it produced brought home to us that armed conflicts and material human suffering are not a thing of the past but affect even “us” in the North quite directly. In Germany and elsewhere, right-wingers intent on protecting their people from Überfremdung and “replacement” tried to use this situation to their advantage. Meanwhile, international cooperation, crucial for effectively fighting global warming, has been stagnating for years, and the effects of climate change are becoming more and more apparent as natural disasters proliferate. Large parts of Africa have been shattered by wars, corruption, hunger, and forced displacement. Social inequality is rising dramatically in many countries, and the economic, financial, and debt crisis is far from over. According to Oxfam, in 2018, the wealth of the 42 richest individuals on earth equaled that of the poorest 3.7 billion. And the gap continues to grow: the top 1 percent now rank in more than 80 percent of the global economic growth, and the number of billionaires is higher than ever before. Perhaps worst of all, democracy is under attack in many places, with authoritarian leaders trampling on liberal values and human rights, and corporations shamelessly exploiting the fragility of once strong democratic institutions and processes. On top of all that, in 2020 the globe was hit by one of the deadliest pandemics in modern history, which has further aggravated the social inequalities both within our societies and globally.

This is the dire state we are in 30 years after the Cold War ended. The end of history? Think again. Little wonder, then, that calls for a radical transformation are becoming louder, voices that demand that we finally move beyond neoliberal financial capitalism, confront inequality, overcome stereotyping and isolationism, and develop new, sustainable forms of living on earth. Which is exactly what I, too, call for in this book. In what follows, I try to lay the foundations for an understanding of new forms of human cooperation and institutional orders.