Economic Frustration: A response to

David Korten’s “Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth”

In David Korten’s interview with Democracy Now! he argues that if we continue down our path of consumption, economic instability, and urban sprawl we will lose our sense of community, relationships, and health. Not only will we be losing our biosphere, we will lose our humanity.

Right away in the interview Korten has given us the first step to recovery, acceptance. He is asking the government to address that the system has failed, and it is time to try something new. He goes on to say that not only has this system failed to give us financial stability, it has also negatively affected our environment and social communities, by destroying our ecosystems and keeping the bottom end communities deprived.

Throughout the interview Korten suggests ways to reform our economic standing, as well as bringing up imperative environmental issues he does not feel are being discussed in congress. He proposes building our economic system to support families, education, small businesses, and sustainability by re-directing the funding coming from the government, as well as transforming Wall Street into Main Street.

I full heartedly agree with what Korten has offered in this interview. He is a brilliant man, writing wonderful books, bringing up critical issues. But when I read this (and many of the other articles throughout the semester) I could not suppress my enormous frustration that I know this, the people reading/watching Democracy Now! know this, and the people he is targeting even know this. So what do we do? I am not sure that what we need to do is convince those in power that there is a problem. They are smart, they must know there is a problem, but what they have to do is give up a lot (lifestyle, money, etc.) in order to fix the problems, and that is the hard part.

Korten is asking his government, colleagues, and country to re-think our society’s way of life, there seems to be a call to action behind his words. Not only does it seem a daunting dream, it seems an almost impossible one. How can we get people mobilized? He is asking us to give up much of what we have, and alter the rest. How do we do that? Statistics have been crammed down peoples’ throats, photographs of landfills bombard the media, wallets are emptying at the pump, and celebrities are inspiring us to eat organically. What else can we do to inspire our government to re-direct the billions of dollars being spent on Industrial Agriculture subsidies, new highways, war, and other harmful endeavors?

Creating a sustainable lifestyle and society may look like we’re moving backwards to many people. We have evolved and created Industrial technologies that provide abundance and convenience, so how do we go back to being without them? It is like giving someone, who has been fishing with their hands a net, and then asking them not to use it. We need to think of it as our society being so evolved we know we could use these Industrial technologies, but shouldn’t.