We are now heading down a centuries-long path toward increasing the productivity of our natural capital - the resource systems upon which we depend to live - instead of our human capital.
Paul HawkenRead
How much harm does a company have to do before we question its right to exist?
Interpretation
The quote questions the ethical implications of a company's actions and its justification for existence.
Paul Hawken's quote provokes thought regarding corporate responsibility and ethics. It challenges us to consider the extent of harm that businesses can inflict on society, the environment, and individuals, and at what point we, as a society, should critically evaluate their legitimacy and right to operate. It underscores the importance of holding companies accountable for their actions and the impact they have on the world.
In practice
This quote could be used in a corporate ethics discussion at a business seminar.
We are now heading down a centuries-long path toward increasing the productivity of our natural capital - the resource systems upon which we depend to live - instead of our human capital.
Inspiration is not garnered from the litanies of what may befall us; it resides in humanity's willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, reimagine, and reconsider.
We can no longer prosper by increasing human productivity. The more we try to do, the more poverty we will create.
At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product.
We have the capacity to create a remarkably different economy: one that can restore ecosystems and protect the environment while bringing forth innovation, prosperity, meaningful work, and true security.
You are Brilliant and the Earth is Hiring.
I am as firmly convinced that religions do harm as I am that they are untrue.
No punishment has ever possessed enough power of deterrence to prevent the commission of crimes. On the contrary, whatever the punishment, once a specific crime has appeared for the first time, its reappearance is more likely than its initial emergence could ever have been.
All the analysis of infinite reality which the finite human mind can conduct rests on the tacit assumption that only a finite portion of this reality constitutes the object of scientific investigation, and that only it is 'important' in the sense of being 'worthy of being known.'
True religion is not about possessing the truth. No religion does that. It is rather an invitation into a journey that leads one toward the mystery of God. Idolatry is religion pretending that it has all the answers.
If we steal a man's purse we are thieves. If we steal twelve hundred islands we are patriots. If you steal a man's money you will be sent to the penitentiary. If you steal his liberty you will be sent to the White House.
If by 'intellectual' you mean people who are a special class who are in the business of imposing thoughts and forming ideas for people in power, and telling people what they should believe...they're really more a kind of secular priesthood, whose task it is to uphold the doctrinal truths of the society. And the population SHOULD be anti-intellectual in that repect.
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