We have reached a stage where governments and political processes have been hijacked by the corporate world. Corporations can within five hours influence the vote in the U.S. Congress. They can influence the entire voting patterns of the Indian Parliament. Ordinary people who put governments in power might want to go in a different direction. I call this the phenomenon of the inverted state, where the state is no longer accountable to the people. The state only serves the interests of corporations.

Gandhi’s idea of swadeshi—that local societies should put their own resources and capacities to use to meet their needs as a basic element of freedom—is becoming increasingly relevant. We cannot afford to forget that we need self-rule, especially in this world of globalization.

When it comes to owning the seed for collecting royalties, the GMO companies say, 'it's mine.' But when it comes to contamination, cross-pollination, health problems, the response is we're not liable.

We have to build movements in the face of trade retaliation on the basis of people's democratic rights, on the basis of an ancient heritage of collective innovation. We work from the grassroots all the way to the national government and the World Trade Organization. It basically means being very multidimensional in our campaigns. And that is where part of the fun is. It involves both resistance and creativity. It involves constructive action, while at the same time saying "no."

Earth Democracy connects people in circles of care, cooperation, and compassion instead of dividing them through competition and conflict, fear and hatred.

The kind of capitalism we are seeing today under this expansion of property into living resources is a whole, new, different phase of capitalism. It is totally inconsistent with democracy as well as with sustainability. What we have is capital working on a global scale, totally uprooted, with accountability nowhere, with responsibility nowhere, and with rights everywhere. This new capital, with absolute freedom and no accountability, is structurally anti-life, anti-freedom.

Diversity creates harmony, and harmony creates beauty, balance, bounty and peace in nature and society, in agriculture and culture, in science and in politics.