When an Idea Becomes a Country!

Change the culture of governance

One year ago ideaXme interviewed Simon Anholt, co-founder the Good Country. Scroll down to click on the interview.

A great deal has happened since then! Simon Anholt presents the world with a proposal to redefine governance by creating an invisible nation.

Aims of the Good Country

“The aim of the Good Country is simple but ambitious: to change the culture of governance worldwide” co-founder, the Good Country.

Find out how this idea became a country.

How are they progressing with this objective? Can you take part?

But first, the Good Country team:

Simon Anholt

“Simon Anholt has worked with numerous Heads of State and Heads of Government, helping their countries to engage more productively and imaginatively with the international community.

Simon has published several books about countries and their role in the world. He also produces two major global surveys tracking public perceptions of countries and cities, and is an Honorary Professor at the University of East Anglia”.

Madeline Hung

“Madeline’s previous work has focused on issues around business and human rights. She is an expert on multi-stakeholder initiatives, and has worked for multiple human rights organizations including Oxfam America and MSIIntegrity, both in the United States and in Cameroon, Nigeria, and the Philippines.

Madeline graduated with a B.A. in Social Studies from Harvard College where she was an Edmond J. Safra Ethics Fellow and also a Humanity In Action Senior Fellow”.

Here’s ideaXme’s interview with Simon Anholt

Simon Anholt interviewed by ideaXme, published on YouTube, ideaXme RadioPublic, ideaXme iTunes, ideaXme SoundCloud, radioideaXme.com.

An update, in Simon Anholt’s words since that interview:

“The Good Country is now much more than an idea, more than a TED talk, and more than an Index: the Good Country is becoming a country, a country with hundreds of millions of citizens from all over the world.

We’re not doing this because we want to build an ideal country, but because we need a new country to build a better world.

A great future for humanity if only humanity could work as one

Sounds like a big task? Well, the good news is that the Good Country already has a huge population. Four years after I launched the Good Country Index at TED, our research has shown that at least ten percent of the world’s population fully shares the values of the Good Country.

Seven hundred million people to focus on collaborating more, competing less

That’s seven hundred million people, the world’s third largest nation. These are the people who, like me and perhaps like you, think of themselves as members of the human race first, and citizens of their own nation second; people who’d like governments to focus a lot more on collaborating and a little less on competing; people who don’t mistrust or dislike other people just because they come from a different background; people who see a great future for humanity if only humanity could learn to work as one.

We all belong to that nation: it’s where we were born. We speak its language, we share its values, and we’re longing to spend more time there, to meet our fellow citizens, and start working together.

A powerful new player at the heart of the international community

Our task now is to activate that vast, invisible nation; to grant it its sovereign status, and so to create a powerful new player at the heart of the international community. Not a movement raising awareness of issues, not a campaign raising money and signing petitions, but a true sovereign power that designs and executes innovative new ways of solving international problems. And we’re lucky enough to be living in an age where such extraordinary things really can happen.

A country without a government

The Good Country will be a country without a government. Thanks to our cutting-edge technology, it will work as a self-organizing system, guided and driven by its citizens. A virtual country that collaborates actively with other countries and shows them how to produce lasting results both for their own citizens and for the world as a whole. A country with the economic power to create new international systems and structures where and when they’re needed.

Design, build and launch a new country

Since January last year, Madeline Hung and I have been working to turn this vision into a reality, and this year we co-founded The Good Country Inc., a non-profit organization whose purpose is to design, build, and launch the new country. We’re working with a growing team of interns and advisors to welcome our first citizens in the last quarter of this year.

Rolling out the “First Nation”

We’ll launch in two stages, enrolling up to 200,000 citizens between September and December this year, then closing again for citizenship while we work with that ‘First Nation’ to ensure that everything is running smoothly. Then, all being well, we’ll re-open for good in September 2019 and start reaching out to the rest of those 700 million people around the world.

We need your help to make this happen. If you’d like to get involved, by spreading the word to your own networks, friends and colleagues, by donating your time and skills to the Good Country, or simply by agreeing to respond to some short survey questions from time to time, please just reply to this article and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.

Good Country to be funded by a low annual tax on its citizens

Once it launches, the Good Country will be entirely funded by a low annual tax on its citizens (in the order of $5 each per year if you live in a rich country, less if you don’t): this is important in order to ensure that it’s funded and influenced by its citizens alone.

Drive the change we all want to see

In return, we promise that the Good Country won’t just talk about change: it will drive the change we all want to see”.

Respond to this update: Contact Simon Anholt: email: [email protected]. Follow: @SimonAnholt

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