Growth or Moral Decline

Growth or Moral Decline

By Dr Arvind Kumar

David Korten in his book Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth, points that humanity is living out an epic morality play. For millennia humanity’s most celebrated spiritual teachers have taught that society works best and we all enjoy our greatest joy and fulfillment when we share, cooperate, and are honest in our dealings with one another. However, Korten laments that but for the past few decades, this truth has been aggressively challenged by a faith called market fundamentalism—an immoral and counter-factual economic ideology that has assumed the status of a modern state religion. Its believers worship the God of money. Stock exchanges and global banks are their temples. They proclaim that everyone does best when we each seek to maximize our individual financial gain without regard to the consequences for others. For a market fundamentalist, to sacrifice profit for some presumed social or environmental good is immoral because the profit culture proclaims greed is a virtue and sharing is a sin.

India’s ancient rich cultural and religious traditions abhor materialism and emphasize on spiritualism. Our common future depends on rediscovering their truth and redefining our public culture and governing institutions accordingly. Similar caution is sounded by Korten when he says: “If all who share a mature moral consciousness find the courage to speak the simple truth that greed is driving us to collective self-destruction and cooperation is essential to our common salvation, we can put the perversion behind us and secure the future of our children.”