The social fabric that the economy creates, and the risks it carries
The ideal of an economically successful person creates a social fabric that poses high risks for all of us. This is the opposite of what we need in order to address the situations we face.
Being or becoming an economically successful member of our societies depends mostly on four aspects:
Having access to property and wealth.
Understanding how wealth is created, especially through certain monetary principles.
Understanding the use and distribution of power.
The ability to apply this knowledge.
This creates a certain kind of social fabric in societies, a fabric that is highly risky for everyone.
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It favors competition instead of cooperation.
The economy is based on competition and the belief that only competition leads to the best ideas and solutions. This fosters inequality and marginalization instead of mutual support and collaboration, which goes against our nature as social and interdependent creatures.
It favors exploitation instead of regenerating nature.
First of all, property is theft. It turns something (soil, nature, plants, fresh air, water) necessary for the well-being of all beings into the possession of a few. And this possession is hardly tied to rules and regulations. In recent decades, the value of a property has changed; it's now only defined by its potential or actual exploitation, where nature doesn't have a say. Pollution, environmental deterioration, and biodiversity loss are directly linked to this.
It favors uniformity instead of diversity.
The ideas we carry of prosperity and wealth are largely similar worldwide, linked to a certain kind of lifestyle and monetary richness. They aren't linked to wisdom, self-development, and individuality. This results in a loss of creativity, the richness of cultures, techniques, and traditions, and the diversity of solutions and possibilities.
Our ideal of an economically successful person is the opposite of one who can transform, who is rooted in himself, and who has the agency and inner power to question and change the current situation. This is the opposite of what we urgently need as a society.