Chris Hedges: The Destroyers

Comments

1. SteveR says:

   February 27, 2013 at 9:22 pm

   I don’t think corporate greed is a root cause, I think it is a symptom of an economic system which has been designed around continuous (therefore exponential ) growth. Money, banking, economic models, measure of ‘wealth’ etc all have underneath them this basic fallacy that endless growth is desirable and necessary and worse, possible. The model has ran out of steam now that we have no more lands to conquer, resources to exploit, room to put people.

   Imagine you run the largest corporation on the planet, but shareholders still expect 3% growth each year? eventually you start burning the picket fence just to keep the fire going – you invent markets (carbon credits, CDO’s) or you cheapen product to encourage consumption (planned obsolescence) or you automate to reduce costs (layoffs) just to keep the profits increasing.
   Eventually you begin to behave like an addict, desperately looking for the next hit.

   The economic system must be reinvented.
   Suggested reading:

   http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/02/25-1

   Published on Monday, February 25, 2013 by Common Dreams

   A Better Plan Than ‘Endless Growth’: Enough Is Enough

   by Rob Dietz and Dan O’Neill

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2. Ed Adamthwaite says:

   February 26, 2013 at 3:08 pm

   I agree, but to dig a little deeper the main cause behind it is corporate greed. Remember the documentary that equated a corporation with psychopathic motivations? Put a dozen ethical people onto a company board and you’ll get unethical and/or psychopathic decisions made for the company.
   Big Corp comprising of Big Ag, Big Pharma, Big Church, Big Ed and the Banksters are the result. The perfect environment for psycopaths to prosper. Go one step further and you get to the underlying human condition, always wanting more. Wether this be from securing one’s future (the best interpretation) or from being just plain greedy with a lust for more stuff and power. This is behind globalisation and the exploitation of third world countries, the off-shoring our manufacturing, pollution and the failure to do anything like the “right” thing for them such as education.
   Population rise is getting so near to a vertical asymptote that it must spike soon. We will carry on with business as usual until civilisation crashes from over exploitation and climate change because the people at the top will not let go of the current system which gives them so much power. Depressing? Yes. What to do about it? Most of the things that Janaia and Robyn have been pushing for for years now. Do everything you can to build resilience into your local community.

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   • admin says:

     February 27, 2013 at 7:27 am

     I agree with you on all fronts, Ed. Especially how psychopaths rise to positions of power. I think of it as “institutionalized greed.” My hunch is that, digging deeper down, that sense of competition for scarce resources got institutionalized when food was locked away at the beginnings of agriculture and surplus foods. So much seems to come from that: hierarchy, domination, militarization, taking resources from nearby groups. But then, that may all have been because some tribes had begun exceeding their environmental carrying capacity. There’s that specter of population rise early on.
     I can only hope that what we show on Peak Moment TV will make a difference for some…thank you for your acknowledgment.

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