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.
You have sat too long for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!
The 20th century shows that the form of government that we take for granted, a constitutional democratic republic with checks and balances and a rule of law - that form of government is usually temporary.
Communism in Cuba will collapse sooner or later because you can't control the free flow of information. Communism prevents organizations from developing by stopping the flow of information. The system is based on police and listening devices and triggers the worst characteristics in humans.
Political campaigns are designedly made into emotional orgies which endeavor to distract attention from the real issues involved, and they actually paralyze what slight powers of cerebration man can normally muster.
We are in a period when old questions are settled and the new are not yet brought forward. Extreme party action, if continued in such a time, would ruin the party. Moderation is its only chance. The party out of power gains by all partisan conduct of those in power
If I could have anything - you know, and this is across the board for any presidential candidate - I would have a greater acknowledgment of history in our policy and in our affairs.
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