If Questions on Identity, Economics & Power
If we are kind, why are the systems we interact with every day unkind? Why will for instance 15K children die today from preventable poverty-related causes while we send more billions to billionaires? — UNICEF
If we teach our kids ‘sharing is caring’, why do the systems we interact with every day unteach them with ‘greed is good’?
If we admire selfless persons, why do the systems we interact with every day nurture selfish persons?
If we love nature, animals, trees, and people with our hearts, why do we hate and ignore them with our daily purchases?
Are we slaves to our own desires or to the system? Or is the system nurturing our selfish desires to exploit profits from them?
How could we have built systems that separate our values from economic value?
I get it, we didn’t build the systems we use today, at least not the narratives underneath their design.
But are we going to indefinitely inherit systems and narratives built by our enslaving, colonising, manipulating forefathers?
Or are we going to grow up and build our own — narratives and systems that couple our personal values with economic value?
Granted; personal values evolve faster than economic systems, but why are our systems taking longer to evolve to our values?
Are we powerless, are we compromised, or are we just not building and adopting our own hopeful alternatives? Or perhaps all the three, where do we start? How do we reconfigure capitalism to upgrade to our evolved values?
Capitalism is designed to chase what is in our wallets, so what if we walleted our need for a flourishing Planet and Society?
If we updated our list of selfish-desires to include our need for a flourishing Planet and Society? If we coupled personal values with economic value, would business innovation optimise for extracting Planet and Society or for regeneration? would corporate branding uncredit Planet and Society as valueless? would advertising disconnect us from Planet and Society? would accounting still dismiss Planet and Society as externalities? would private ownership own wealth meant for Planet and Society? and won’t market competition transition from satisfying immediate personal desires to satisfying our need for a flourishing Planet and Society?
If the rights and incentives of corporations are protected by the state, why don’t the masses self-organise to protect the rights and incentives of Planet and Society to execute their duties?
If we added Power to our Wallets, or power to our daily purchases would we not refocus capitalism to flourish Planet and Society instead of corporations?
