We can have democracy and a prosperous, just, and sustainable human future. Or we can have corporate rule. We cannot have both.
Interpretation
Democracy and corporate rule cannot coexist; one must prevail for a just future.
This quote by David Korten emphasizes the stark choice between maintaining a democratic society that supports equality and sustainability versus succumbing to corporate rule that prioritizes profit over people. Korten warns that allowing corporate interests to dominate governance undermines the potential for a fair and thriving future for humanity, suggesting that true progress can only be achieved through democratic means.
In practice
In a speech about environmental policy, one might say, 'We can have democracy and a sustainable human future, as David Korten reminds us.'
When the institutions of money rule the world, it is perhaps inevitable that the interests of money will take precedence over the interests of people. What we are experiencing might best be described as a case of money colonizing life. To accept this absurd distortion of human institutions and purpose should be considered nothing less than an act of collective, suicidal insanity.
In a world of increasing inequality, the legitimacy of institutions that give precedence to the property rights of 'the Haves' over the human rights of 'the Have Nots' is inevitably called into serious question.
As corporations gain in autonomous institutional power and be-come more detached from people and place, the human interest and the corporate interest increasingly diverge. It is almost as though we were being invaded by alien beings intent on colonizing our planet, reducing us to serfs, and then excluding as many of us as possible.
Capitalism and the market are presented as synonymous, but they are not. Capitalism is both the enemy of the market and democracy.
Living capital, which has the special capacity to continuously regenerate itself, is ultimately the source of all real wealth. To destroy it for money, a simple number with no intrinsic value, is an act of collective insanity - which makes capitalism a mental, as well as physical pathology.
The proper goal of an economic democracy agenda is to replace the global suicide economy ruled by rapacious and unaccountable global corporations with a planetary system of local living economies comprised of human-scale enterprise rooted in the communities they serve and locally owned by the people whose wellbeing depends on them.
The political world is defined by relationships rather than transactions, and by numerous actors at home and abroad with independent power. Navigating such a world is difficult and precarious.
As someone who worked hard for a Labour victory in the 90s, do I regret it? Not really. It was bound to happen. And it'll happen with the next government, and the one after it. Because all governments serve us. They serve the filth.
If the General Government should be left dependent on the State Legislatures, it would be happy for us if we had never met in this room.
U.S. analysts estimate that Russian military expenditures have tripled during the Bush-Putin years, in large measure a predicted reaction to the Bush administration's militancy and aggressiveness.
No man should have a political office because he wants a job.
Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.
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