It's easy to distain the message of Gordon Gekko and his real life Wall Street contemporaries - Greed is only good for a very few and their obsession with material wealth is destroying America for the rest of us. But we have to look more closely at the memes of corporate America and of capitalism itself.
Not only is Greed Not Good but neither is Growth.
Lots of economists talk about the 'post-industrial' era but we keep slavishly marching our economy to the fading tune of manufacturing - making more things for consumers to buy. Where Oh Where is the Information Age?
The End of Growth by Richard Heinberg has been on the bookshelves for nearly two years and he wasn't the first to sound the warning call of unbridled growth. No time to read the book? Try either of these two articles - it's easy to see why growth can no longer be the goal of a post-industrial economy.
"While this economic reconfiguration would not mitigate the effects of climate change and the depletion of natural resources it would create the social stability needed to cope with a new post-growth regime."
" . . . retooling our economy to accomplish this would create high paying jobs. In fact, clean energy investments generate three times as many jobs per dollar invested than fossil fuels do."
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Here? Am I doing it? Can you read me now? This is easy!
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