Overcoming the epidemic of loneliness (tags)
The planet can do without human beings, but humanity cannot do a second without the planet. A subsystem can never dominate the superordinate system, nor can it grow indefinitely within it. For this simple reason, the two central premises of industrial society - endless growth and domination of nature - are deadly illusions.
Capitalism in the Faith Crisis (tags)
Trust in the "invisible hand" is a religious exercise ensuring a rule over people that is destructive and fatal. Christians and Marxists wage a common struggle against the spirit, logic, and praxis of the false money-god and its servants.
Capitalism as a Religion (tags)
"Capital is the only god that the whole world knows, sees, touches, smells, tastes and excites all our senses. It is the only god that doesn't encounter any atheists" (Paul Lafargue's little known genial satire "Religion of Capital" from 1887.
On the End of Capitalism (tags)
The bridge from capitalism to the new "post-growth economy" is lacking. Hardly anyone reflects about the process of transformation...If the climate should be spared, flying cannot be a human right. The R-word will be unavoidable again: renunciation.
Comment on Keystone XL Pipeline - Open until March 7, 2014 (tags)
Building pipelines means abandoning a decent infrastructure. European train do not derail all the time. They have invested in the infrastructure and a longer horizon that saves money and prevents environmental degradation. Vancouver B.C. has 26 community centers!
Economist Hans Christoph Binswanger and his views (tags)
He has always been a maverick. In the seventies and eighties Hans Christoph Binswanger taught economics at the Swiss Unviersity of St. Gallen.. Capitalism has to be reformed so it will be less aggressive and less vulnerable for crisis.
Raul Zelik and Elmar Altvater discuss the nature of utopia, economics, how growth and work become fetishes, how what is rational in micro-economics can become irrational in macro-economics, time prosperity and how Marx recognized the contradictions in capitalism.
Can a Person Own HIs/Her Mother? (tags)
No one can own what exists in nature except nature. A human cannot own its own mother. However western ownership systems have been forced on us again and again that contradict our worldview and our values. Ubunto is another example: "I only live when you live."
"The logic of the stock corporation leads to all profits ultimately being used to raise the stock price which promotes speculation." The only way to solve mass unemployment, destruction of the environment and trade imbalance is to break out of the system and pursue qualitative growth."
Biblical Sabbath Economy (tags)
Franz Segbers insists the Biblical Sabbath economy cares for the oikos, not speculation and accumulation When the right of speculation trumps the right of housing, we end up protecting the sharks from the sardines (cf "Housing as a Human Right")
Growth in justice, opportunity and environ-mental caring requires identifying blind spots and abandoning myths. Economists must learn to subtract. The state must control the market so everybody shares in wealth and increased productivity.
Nature as Healer and Teacher (tags)
Nature is a healer and teacher, a wounded healer and scorned teacher, a majestic fountain of awe, wonder and inspiration.. Nature cries in pain because she is reduced to a free good, external or sink by a one-dimensional economism.