A better world is possible - Global Commons Institute
A better world is possible - Global Commons Institute
A better world is possible - Global Commons Institute
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Copyright Bruce Nixon 2010. All rights reserved. Th<strong>is</strong> electronic copy <strong>is</strong> provided free for personal, non-commercial use only.<br />
www.brucenixon.com<br />
Today our institutions are designed to achieve the wrong purposes – consuming and producing more and<br />
making corporations and relatively few people richer and more powerful. Instead they should be designed to<br />
meet our needs sustainably, lift the poor out of poverty and benefit everyone without damaging the earth on<br />
which all life depends. We get caught in pointless pursuit of ever higher levels of income, consumption,<br />
competition and overwork. We are subtly subjected to propaganda, brainwashed into believing we’ll feel<br />
<strong>better</strong> with more and bigger and it leads to greater happiness. Clearly it never does. The pressure on us <strong>is</strong> to<br />
d<strong>is</strong>play wealth, be cool, compare ourselves with others and we end up feeling bad. We have a sense that<br />
there <strong>is</strong> no alternative. The pressures to conform are enormous. Anyone who fundamentally questions or<br />
challenges the system <strong>is</strong> marginal<strong>is</strong>ed and portrayed as weird. The media <strong>is</strong> a major part of it.<br />
Th<strong>is</strong> figure sums it up.<br />
Free Market Capital<strong>is</strong>m and Big Business out of control<br />
• Belief in “Great God Growth” and economic growth and having more stuff<br />
• Fuels climate change and consumes more than “spaceship earth” can provide<br />
• Destroys the ecosystem and diversity on which all life depends<br />
• Pursuit of cheaper everything<br />
• Not making us happier or creating more wellbeing and security<br />
• Systematically transfers wealth from poor to super rich. Bears down on people who make things,<br />
serve and feed us<br />
• Big Co’s external<strong>is</strong>e cost, abuse power, subvert democracy, dominate the media and keep us<br />
m<strong>is</strong>informed and mesmer<strong>is</strong>ed<br />
• Big government, big tech fixes – not small solutions or precautionary principle. Ideology – not what<br />
works<br />
• Central<strong>is</strong>ing power and dimin<strong>is</strong>hing democracy at all levels and civil rights<br />
• Mono-thinking creates mono-culture, mono-everything, “clone towns”<br />
• Supported by a huge military economy that does great harm and diverts us from the biggest<br />
fundamental challenges we have ever faced<br />
Essentially we are robbed and d<strong>is</strong>empowered – how can we be so gullible?<br />
Underlying the global economic system <strong>is</strong> an unsustainable debt money system. The financial cr<strong>is</strong><strong>is</strong> makes<br />
that clear.<br />
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An unsustainable money system<br />
Debt Money – 95% of our money created by banks – “creating money out of thin air”<br />
Creates massive debt burden especially for poor countries<br />
Debt -systematically transfers wealth from poor to rich<br />
Inherently unsustainable - need to repay debt and interest drives unsustainable development<br />
Lack of regulation and due diligence – e.g. subprime cr<strong>is</strong><strong>is</strong>, credit crunch, recession, bailouts -the<br />
taxpayer pays<br />
Perverse taxation – bears down on poorer people, fails to reward the sustainable and penal<strong>is</strong>e the<br />
unsustainable<br />
UK personal debt £1.35trn exceeds GDP £1.31trn<br />
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