Jeg faldt over dette indlæg fra David Korten, som jeg synes giver et meget præcist billede af hele vækstfilosofien . Han kalder sit essay A new story for a new economy . Det er netop det, Alternativet er i gang med: At skrive en ny fortælling om en ny og anderledes økonomi. Jeg giver ordet til David Korten med at beskrive vækstfilosofien. Den nye historie skriver vi selv. A New Story for a New Economy David Korten we have turned as a global society to a Sacred Money and Markets story that legitimates and frames the structure of an economic system that destroys life to make money for those who already have money far beyond any reasonable need. We experience at every hand the devastating consequences. This essay is my effort to bring together the elements of a New Story for a New Economy that embodies the entirety of current human knowledge . As science, technology, and urbanization set us ever farther apart from nature, we began to think of ourselves as godlike creatures with the right and the power to dominate, control, and replace nature with human created technologies. Economists urged us to turn to money as our ultimate measure of value and look to markets as our moral compass. Corporate interests picked up these themes and promoted them incessantly through corporate controlled media with the assistance of the PR and advertising experts in their hire until they became the defining themes of the public culture. With time, we embraced the making of money as our moral obligation and life purpose; the market price of our possessions as the measure of our personal worth. Money and markets became our objects of sacred veneration. The institutions of finance became temples of worship. Economists became the priests to whom we look for moral instruction. We came to embrace our individual collective violence against life as acts of virtue. Pope Francis correctly names our collective worship of money “idolatry.” The consequence is truly evil: a deadly toxic relationship with Earth’s sacred community of life. The only serious update of the sacred stories underlying our public discourse since the days of Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton is the story of Sacred Money and Markets. It goes like this: Time is money. Money is wealth. Making money creates wealth and is the defining purpose of the individual, business, and the economy. Those who make money are society’s wealth creators. Their affluent lifestyles are their fair and just reward for their special contribution; they merit our appreciation and respect. Material consumption is the path to happiness. We humans are by nature individualistic and competitive. The invisible hand of the free market directs our insatiable competitive drive to serve ends that maximize the wealth of all. Inequality and environmental damage are regrettable, but necessary, collateral damage on the path to prosperity for all. If we hold true to course, economic growth will eventually create sufficient wealth to end poverty and drive the technological advances needed to end human dependence on nature. Most readers will readily recognize—or at least suspect—that every assertion of this familiar story is false or badly misleading. Although economics courses in our most prestigious universities teach this story and corporate media constantly repeat it, it is bad ethics, bad science, and bad economics— as is extensively documented elsewhere by many authors, including myself. The ultimate proof is the environmental devastation, economic desperation, and social alienation this story leaves everywhere in its path.
Posted on: Sun, 02 Nov 2014 20:13:20 +0000
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