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
At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote critiques how current economic practices prioritize short-term gains over sustainable future development.
Paul Hawken's quote highlights a significant flaw in modern economic systems, suggesting that we are exploiting future resources and benefits for immediate financial profit, labeled as gross domestic product (GDP). This perspective encourages a re-evaluation of how we measure economic success, advocating for a balance that considers long-term sustainability and the well-being of future generations.
Themes
EconomySustainabilityFutureGdpResources
In practice
Example use cases
During a business seminar focused on sustainable practices, this quote can emphasize the need for a forward-thinking approach.
More from Paul Hawken
All quotes βInspiration 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.
Paul HawkenRead
We can no longer prosper by increasing human productivity. The more we try to do, the more poverty we will create.
Paul HawkenRead
How much harm does a company have to do before we question its right to exist?
Paul HawkenRead
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.
Paul HawkenRead
You are Brilliant and the Earth is Hiring.
Paul HawkenRead
Similar quotes
Although we work through financial markets, our goal is to help Main Street, not Wall Street.
Janet YellenRead
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.
David KortenRead
THE CORRECTION, when it finally came, was not an overnight bursting of a bubble but a much more gentle letdown, a year-long leakage of value from key financial markets, a contraction too gradual to generate headlines and too predictable to seriously hurt anybody but fools and the working poor.
Jonathan FranzenRead
The perennial conviction that those who work hard and play by the rules will be rewarded with a more comfortable present and a stronger future for their children faces assault from just about every direction. That great enemy of democratic capitalism, economic inequality, is real and growing.
Jon MeachamRead
You could not possibly maintain the current level of government taxation without the taxes being hidden, and they are hidden in two very different ways. They are hidden through withholding, but they are also hidden by being imposed on business, supposedly on business, when really, of course, business can't pay taxes, only people can pay taxes.
Milton FriedmanRead
Our economy is the result of millions of decisions we all make every day about producing, earning, saving, investing, and spending.
Dwight D. EisenhowerRead