Curated by: Luigi Canali De Rossi
 


Sunday, August 15, 2004

Money Is Not A Measure Of Well-Being: New Corporate Investors Show Change

Money as the measure of value and consumption as the measure of well-being means that when more money is spent -- that is, when the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) statistic is up -- "the economy is healthy." It doesn't matter whether that money is spent on food or toxic cleanups, on weapons or tractors, on unemployment benefits or production bonuses, up is up and money is what counts.

There is no "down" in our national GDP accounts, so every penny spent is assumed to mean someone is better off. Free things like loving our children, helping ourselves, supporting a sick neighbor or volunteering community service -- none of these things count in the dominant measures of our community or national health.

Advertising reinforces this with the constant message, in a million forms, that we are better off if we buy X, Y and Z.

Some anti-corporate activists suggest that we now face a legally irresponsible race of totally self-interested, unanswerable mega-persons of unprecedented global power who have no feelings, conscience or mortality, but who have broad influence over the collective mind of the masses and the increasingly unfettered access to the public treasury, and who manage to get society to pay the costs of their destructive activities with barely any protest.

This may paint an extreme picture, but it is one with a disturbing amount of truth in it.

Efforts to rein in corporate power -- to make corporations more answerable and democratic, to limit their influence in politics and governance, to regulate their environmental and social impacts -- have proven difficult.

But some interesting initiatives are emerging from an unusual quarter -- the folks who control corporations (at least in theory) -- the investors, themselves.

Read more here:

Investors Demanding Environmental Responsibility, Study Shows

Canadian Press

Friday 18 June 2004

The Soul Of Capitalism

The Soul of Capitalism

by William Greider

THE NATION, September 29, 2003

The Concord Principles: An Agenda for a New Initiatory Democracy

by Ralph Nader

February 1, 1992


Total Corporate Responsibility Achieving Sustainability and Real Prosperity

Frank Dixon (Published in Ethical Corporation Magazine, December 2003)

May 27, 2004

 

 

Tom Atlee - [ Read more ]
 
 
Readers' Comments    
blog comments powered by Disqus
 
posted by Robin Good on Sunday, August 15 2004, updated on Tuesday, May 5 2015

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

1981

 

 

Real Time Web Analytics