Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Module 2
Final Paper
Who should lead? Those who have the power, the willingness and the
efficacynamely, governments like Norway, because they combine
proximate and ultimate responses to serious issues. The culture they
engender is resilient, egalitarian and non-wasteful, while the government is
serious about business being curtailed to the greater needs of the
environment, i.e., not poisoning or enslaving everyone for a buck.
All social phenomena can work synergistically. Ecology and capitalism
are no exception to this notion. If there are defined parameters and
extremes, then a median synergy can be found to the long term benefit of
all. Operationally for the proximate effect, this would have to be undertaken
by a third party that is unaffected by the biases of the two sides initially
involved. In the case of ecology and capitalism, this third party has to be
governance armed with regulatory frameworks at all levelsnational,
transnational, and subnational that have teeth that cannot be ignored. For
the ultimate effect, government is once again involved but in this case, the
challenge is changing the cultural and educational landscape of the coming
generations and their attitudes to consumption, recycling, capitalism and
business. In a phrase, changing the ontology and worldview of the coming
generations.
like Norway, Sweden and the like. But this green technology, energy saving,
efficiency trend has come from businesses, in response to rising concern
from consumers and governments. But, as demonstrated, they have used
the trend to make themselves bigger, faster and more destructive and in the
face of unenforced laws and agreements, they will generally do what is in
their interest. Though some have said this is just the nature of capitalism, I
posit that it is not. Rather, it is a reflection of the ontology and worldview of
the people running the corporations, and of the consumers. It is just as
feasible to run the same businesses, at a slower rate that is more conducive
to products that arent built with planned obsolescence, to cleaner environs,
safer workplaces and so on.
To change the worldview, governments must lead the charge in two
ways that address the proximate and ultimate causes. The immediacy of the
environmental crises requires that governments pen punitive regulations for
environmental offenders, and bring the business world to heel by not
allowing shortcuts, outsourcing, and transaction and process opacity. To add
to this, the creation of a minimum world wage standard would need to be
institutedWalmart, Apple, Target, etc., would be unable to outsource to the
3rd to avoid living wages or taxation, and as such would be cornered by policy
makers. Such an agreement would have to occur between governments, and
so a transnational solution for a transnational problem is born.
The second aspect that governments must concern themselves with is
addressing the ultimate cause, that of culture and worldview of those they