The folks over at Justice and Compassion made a great post about “Our Excrement Economy.”
“As part of this insane and suicidal economy, we act as though the resources we consume are infinite and the wastes we deposit are invisible. Just as our bodies consume food and produce excrement, in this economy we consume trees and produce smoke, consume clean air and produce smog, consume clean water and produce sewage and toxic waste, consume rock and produce radiation, consume oil and coal and produce gases that turn our planet into an overheating oven in which storms boil and oceans rise and deserts spread and forests wither. Our prosperity system thus becomes an excrement factory.”
– Brian McLaren, from a preview of Everything Must Change
However, one reader Joe pointed out:
I’d say this is an oversimplification which isn’t really helping very much – we are as tied into a ‘cycle of wealth’ as my friends are tied into a disgusting ‘cycle of poverty’, and just pointing out that our whole existance is built on sand isn’t helping any.
My angle our collective globalization conundrum:
I think they’re both right. When we talk about globalization we tend to talk in universal goods vs. bad. Unfortunately, this ignores the vast complexity and truth of issue. For, instance Tom Friedman pronounced the World Is Flat because globalization was leveling the playing field on a global scale. But that as Richard Florida has pointed out in Flight of the Creative Class is not true because of the concentration of talent (and wealth).
So what do you think??? What is your perspective???
So, is globalization a mixed bag? For us? For developing economies? How can we move to a more productive way of talking and thinking about globalization? How can we move to a more productive way of curbing the excesses of globalization? We’re so wedded to globalization and its benefits, how can we reverse our perilous course? Do we live in an “excrement economy”?
1 response so far ↓
mg // July 26, 2007 at 1:22 am |
the point is this- mclaren is going to make a large number of people think about economic concepts, ideas and how they impact humanity and the planet and that is GOOD. he is basically arguing in this book that global capitalism is unjust (i haven’t finished it yet, but i am hoping his solution is going to focus heavily on making things more “equitable”). the only bad thing about his book is that his attempt to simplify economic concepts into understandable language is paralyzed by the fact that he was already entangled with post modern language coming into this book. thats not bad for his intended audience, but it may be very very bad for Joe Blow who will be trying to read MClaren’s book, and understand whilst Bill ORiley and the rest of the non-emergent community accuses MClaren of communism. when that happens in Oct of 2007, the church will have to do even more soul searching. the US church that is. the rest of the world already know what kind of system we’re dealing with… just some thoughts… I have new respect for Brian because of this book. He is a brave man and will do more to reform this system than the traditional left is even capable of coherently imagining right now.
anyway, peace