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.
Interpretation
The quote advocates for a shift from global corporate dominance to local economies that prioritize community well-being.
David Korten's quote emphasizes the need for an economic system that values local enterprises over large, unaccountable corporations. It argues for the establishment of a 'living economy' that serves the community's needs, is owned by its members, and promotes sustainability and well-being, in contrast to a detrimental global economy that harms people and the planet.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about promoting local businesses during an economic summit.
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.
We can have democracy and a prosperous, just, and sustainable human future. Or we can have corporate rule. We cannot have both.
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.
When the word 'morality' comes up in connection with economics, income distribution and financial stability are usually the issues. Is it moral for rich countries to use such a high proportion of the world's resources or for investment bankers to earn large bonuses?
Trade is now clearly designed to favor the wealthiest and most powerful corporations at the expense of the rest of us. The three wealthiest people on earth now control more assets than the combined incomes of 600 million people in the world's 48 poorest countries.
If I care about poverty, I have to care a lot about investments in the private sector. The private sector creates the vast majority of jobs in the world, and social protection only goes so far.
We have designed a capitalist system wrong. We assume human beings are one-dimensional, all they do is make money, so we've created a money-centric world.
When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals.
At the current $5.15 an hour, the federal minimum wage has become a poverty wage. A full-time worker with one child lives below the official poverty line.
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