“[GDP] measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.” (Robert Kennedy)
| This post is part of a reading series on Regenerative Economics, by John B. Fullerton. To access all chapters quickly, open this book’s presentation page. Disclaimer: This chapter summary is personal work and an invitation to read the book itself for a detailed view of all the authors’ ideas. |
The assessment has become commonplace: “Despite its many achievements, including a dramatic rise in the material well-being of a small minority of today’s growing global population, science tells us that our current economic system, fueled by a single-minded growth imperative, is fundamentally at odds with the finite boundaries of the biosphere and the laws (not theories) of physics. Similarly, climate change and, more broadly, the degradation of the life-supporting functions of a healthy ecosystem threaten life as we know it, presenting an existential threat that has no parallel in human history. We are destroying the planet because there is a profit in it.1” In short, “money is the sole measure of success, regardless of how that money is made or how much harm it does to people, civilization (now and in the future), and the planet.”
“Yet, despite a growing chorus of demands to rethink our economic assumptions—beginning with Robert Kennedy in his famous 1968 speech2—most people continue to stick their head in the sand. Many believe that we will be able to innovate our way out of impending disaster at the eleventh hour without challenging the core assumptions of the system.” These mounting social, ethical, economic, financial, and environmental crises, connected in an incomprehensibly complex web, are converging into a global emergency. Can we collectively effect systems transformation—a paradigm shift—in response to the reality we understand?