by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
The world needs to rethink of business, government and finance needs to rethink economy and bring it back to scale.
We need to establish an economy as if people mattered as Fritz Schumacher called it, and we must do this rather faster than some would think.
Governments and industry talk about economic growth continually as something top be aspired to. But how far can an economy really grow?
The economic growth that is all the time being talked about is being brought about by products that do not last and on the back of blatant consumerism and overconsumption.
Manufactured products nowadays have economic growth factored in in that they have a lifespan of no more than a couple of years, if that, such as computers, for instance who have obsolescence built in and are already “out of date” by the time the consumer has purchased one.
Talking about computers much of the obsolescence is not due to the hardware but to the fact that the likes of Microsoft produces programs that need ever more and more memory and speed. Using alternative operating systems and programs often do away with that such as Linux and when one sees that Windows Vista requires four DVDs from which to install the operating system while Ubuntu Linux come on a 700MB CD with not just the operating system but also most of the applications that a user may every need and want. But, I digressed.
In the days of old, so to speak, things were made to last and still people operated good and profitable businesses and the economy worked nicely, thank you. Then came the banking style greed of ever more and ever bigger and finally it was discovered that if you make things no to last and built obsolescence in and also the fact that after the guarantee time of a year or three (depending on the given) the product will cease to work you have a steady stream of orders.
Then came the advertising industry telling people that they need this new product and that new product and when the recession-cum-depression of 2008/2009 was upon us governments even told people to go out and spend, spend, spend their way out of the recession. This never has worked and will not work now.
At the same time people who were or decided, because of the economic conditions, to go, frugal and not spend but save, were likened to terrorist and told that they were wrong and endangering the country.
We cannot continue to carry on in this way. We must change and we must do that now and that equally for the good of Mother Earth as for its children, human and non-human alike.
© 2010
