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Illusions and devastation: from growth economies to healthy eco-economies


The only great thing about the growth economy is the extraordinary marketing strategy that has duped 98% of the world into believing in it and colluding with it while digging our collective grave.

Over and over we hear newscasters and politicians emphasizing the phrase “economic growth” as if it’s the most marvelous of blessings while it is actually probably one of the greatest diseases we currently have to contend with. The growth economy is based almost entirely on lies and is destroying our bodies, our souls and the entire planetary eco-system. Let’s look at some of the more cynical aspects and destructive consequences of the growth economy as we have so intimately come to know it.

Growth economies:

  • are designed to exploit people and planet for the benefit of a few while peddling in war, waste, depletion of the planet and short term interest

  • have vast value for the conglomerates with little lasting value for locals. Basically they siphon off local resources into the bank accounts of a few individuals.

  • are based on obscene discrepancies between salaries of people at different layers of organizations

  • are based on speculation and rigged values manipulated by those in power rather than real value exchange

  • sell addiction to unhealthy products rather than real nourishment

  • generate huge divides between the haves and the have-nots with the psychological dynamics of anxiety, greed, envy, corruption etc. that accompany such divides

  • siphon taxpayer money into the pockets of the rich by artificially creating and funding crises and products guised as solutions that create further cycles of depletion and addiction

  • generate gambling cultures with unfair privilege to those who are in the stock market or have access to expensive consultants.

  • are dependent on lies - misleading and dishonest advertising designed to get the consumer to buy irrespective of real value or consequence to the animals people or planet

  • culturally disconnect people from themselves, each other and the environment

  • creates complex rules designed to be inaccessible to all who are not in the field and to privilege those making the rules and those with access to consultants and lawmakers

  • lock the taxpayer in a cycle of endless work for less and less value

  • idolize individuals narcissistic luxury lifestyle

  • generate stress, fear, greed, alienation, dependence, violence, illness and poverty

  • instigate wars to reap profit from military industries

  • contribute to chronic diseases created by the unnecessary food and chemical industries and the manipulations of the big-pharma industry

  • undermine security and feed the security industry that gains from media glorifying violence.

  • generate environmental damage caused by the petrochemical and other mining industries and wasteful products.

  • suppress environmentally sound inventions to maintain dependence on fossil fuels, pesticides, and chemically formulated medications

We need healthy organic economies that:

  • work with life and nature rather than against it

  • are organized as local inter-dependent, diverse, balanced, complementary and mutually nourishing eco-systems

  • based on mutual enrichment and accountability that puts the planet and all its inhabitants first and is constantly investing in and regenerating the eco-system on which we all depend.

  • based on real value exchange and not on speculation or deception.

  • based on investing only in that which is good for animals, people and planet.

  • that disinvest from and bans any enterprise that is damaging or potentially damaging physically or emotionally for animals, people or planet.

  • that invest in the well-being of the whole and not in the well-being of some parts of the whole at the expense of others.

  • that invest in ensuring the human and non-human parts of the environment have what they need to be able to thrive in mutually nourishing and sustainable ways.

  • are based on an accurate balance of giving and receiving rather than on endless taking of resources by some at the expense of others and the sustainability of the resources

  • that cultivate healthy mutually nourishing relationships among the parts.

  • founded on radically honest, caring and fair value exchange that does not artificially privilege particular genders or skill sets over others but determines value according to the real nourishing value to people animals and the planet.

Now that we are learning that we are far from separate and far from superior to other animals, and that our self interest is actually inextricable from the interest of the rest of the eco-system, we will perhaps finally understand it is time to totally reinvent the economy. It is sad that we were unable to get to this realization from a place of compassion. At least the new information justifies a healthier economy for all even if initially we shift to this from a more immature place of self interest. Education about an inter-dependent system will not only help our economy it may help us as humans, to evolve into the caring, mutually nourishing species we claim as humanity to be.

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