David Korten Quotations

The first principle of the market economy is that it is comprised of many small buyers and sellers, which implies a substantial degree of equity. Another fundamental market principle is that costs are internalized in the producer's price.

We can have democracy and a prosperous, just, and sustainable human future. Or we can have corporate rule. We cannot have both.

So, there is enormous instability in the global economy with a shift of winners and losers.

If you look at the US economy over the last 15-20 years wages have been stagnating or even declining.

Europeans say they are proud of their social fabric, of strong rights for workers and the weak in society.

Our global economy is out of control and performing contrary to basic principles of market economics.

As an economy measures performance in terms of the creation of money, people become a major source of inefficiency.

It will take some time before a politician will capture the imagination of the American people and have the vision and understanding to do what is necessary for a better future for the people of America and the world.

Entranced by promises of a material paradise of limitless luxury, humanity has too long ignored the mismatch between the imperatives of our existence as living beings on a finite planet and the imperatives of the institutions of money that chart our path to the future. Created to build colonial empires in service to kings, global corporations are ill suited to the task of building just, sustainable, and compassionate civil societies that nurture sufficiency, partnership, and respect for the whole of life.

To achieve true sustainability, we must reduce our "garbage index" - that which we permanently throw away into the environment that will not be naturally recycled for reuse - to near zero. Productive activities must be organized as closed systems. Minerals and other nonbiodegradable resources, once taken from the ground, must become a part of society's permanent capital stock and be recycled in perpetuity. Organic materials may be disposed into the natural ecosystems, but only in ways that assure that they are absorbed back into the natural production system.