The long march of hierarchical and colonial history has led us to this moment of awareness. We are learning that the melting glaciers, coronavirus pandemic, species extinctions, racial and income inequality, political turmoil, and other heart-wrenching events are symptoms of a global social-governmental-economic system that is consuming itself into extinction. This is what I call the Death Economy that defines success as the maximization of short-term profits for corporations and short-term accumulation of material things for individuals, regardless of the environmental and social costs.
If enough of us confront our fear of change, this Death Economy could be transformed into one that cleans up pollution, regenerates destroyed environments, and creates technologies that do not ravage the environment—a living economy, a Life Economy. We will either change our ideas, values, and actions and accept new ways of relating to other people, resources, countries, governments, and cultures, or we will propel ourselves into extinction—or something unimaginably close to extinction.
Capitalism versus predatory capitalism.
There is a major difference between capitalism and what many economists refer to as “predatory capitalism,” a deviant that has little in common with the original. According to Merriam-Webster, capitalism is “An economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market.”
