by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
E.F. Schumacher had subtitled his now ionic book “Small is Beautiful” with “A study of economics as if people mattered” and it is just such an economy that we have to establish for the good of the Mother Earth and all Her children, human and non-human.
The present (capitalist) global economic system is harmful to both humankind and Mother Earth, as it is highly exploitative. Humans are seen, used and exploited as resources in the same was as natural resources of the Planet.
That people are no more than resources to those running the global economy and even government departments, local and national, can be seen from the renaming of the personnel departments to human resources departments, for instance. Human resources... why not say slaves straight away.
Once upon a time, not so long ago even, employees, workers, were seen as personnel of an enterprise; today just as human resources, and they are being exploited in the same way as the resources of the Planet, the gifts of Mother Earth.
The way the global economy, fueled to a great degree by the greed of developed nations, robs the Earth of its riches and uses those up without any thought and consideration for the future and future generations, it can therefore be but linked to one of robber barons.
The huge conglomerates steal not only the gifts of the Earth, nay, they steal our children's and grand-children's very future.
The global economy of today is nothing but a ponzi scheme of monumental proportions, robbing Peter – it is not even borrowing – in order to pay Paul, while killing everything.
We have ruined farmland and made it infertile through the use of agro-chemicals that were supposed to make things better, we have over fished the oceans to such an extent that by 2050 the oceans could be devoid of life, at least of edible fish, and most of those fish that have been caught in the sea since around 1900 have not even been used to feed people. Most of the fish ever caught have been processed into things other than food for humans. They became fertilizer, many of them.
We have destroyed the health of most farmland, arable and other, because the way we, predominately, do farm today.
Today almost everything is a mono culture with no rest permitted for the land whatsoever; it has to be productive. However, it is not.
Year in, year out the same crops are grown on the same plots and more and more fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides and other agro-chemicals are needed in order too produce anything.
The soil of most farms is sick to dead but could be brought back to vitality and health with the proper farming methods that have been proven to work for centuries.
But... that would mean somewhat lower yields, if organic methods, as they must, would be employed and the agri-business, the agri-industy, can not possible accept that. Instead they rather destroy eco-systems, pollute air, water, and soil,, and, in the process and end Mother Earth and all Her children.
We must, however, return to a sustainable farming as well as a sustainable economy in general.
In order to reap ever bigger profits companies relocate manufacturing and even call centers to developing countries where they can pay slave wages and where regulations as regards to workers and the environment are hundred times or more even lower than say in the European Union, the USA or Canada.
We ship our waste in the form of recyclables – but also as waste proper – half ways around the world to be, in the case of recyclables, reprocessed their, such as in China, or, in the case of waste per se, to be landfilled there, mostly in Third World countries.
Both because legislations and regulations are so much more lax – it at all existent – in those countries compared to those in the EU, USA, etc.
A few recycling reprocessors do exist in Britain, for instance, that take recyclables and make new stuff from them but only a mere handful or two.
The entire global economy of ours is, basically, based upon the exploitation of natural resources and of people, to maximize the profit of a few.
While no one should begrudge entrepreneurs a decent return of their ventures, business, the world over, must rethink how it acts and works.
Aside from the fact that our entire economy, more or less, with a few exceptions, is based on (the use of) fossil fuel – a finite resource – as far as energy, for one, is concerned, other aspects too are unsustainable and the current banking system is but one of them.
The world needs too rethink it economy and how we do business.
Copyright © Michael Smith 2010
