David Korten: When Capitalism Rules the World
Capitalism refers to an economic or political system where factors of production are owned by private entities. David Korten condemns this system of economy, in his interview. According to David Korten, with capitalism, the economy will not be in position to perform within the principles in the market economics. His argument against the system of capitalism is that, capital, economic power and other factors of production are only concentrated in a few hands (Korten, 2014). According to his political view, capitalism is an enemy of democracy; the rule of democracy is that one person one vote, whereas with capitalism, you find that 100 rich people own more assets compared 1 billion poor people, hence causing imbalances.
According to him, there cannot be economic boom when only a few minority benefit. In reality, economic boom involves increased productivity, increased wages, increased sales and increased demand in the economy. However, he argues that in the US economy, wages have been stagnating and declining over the past 20 years. And only those who work for more hours can have their incomes increased. He also argues that GDP is not an effective determinant of the standard of living because it always ignores the poor people in developing countries (Korten, 2014). In his view, the progress in modernity affects the average citizens. For instance, roads can be built for cars and yet the majority of citizens cannot afford the cars. Dams are constructed and thousands of poor people being displaced from their homes. Therefore, he believes that money is just a number but not wealth and real wealth is having food in abundance, fertile land, proper infrastructure and other things that can sustain human living.
The measure of the standard of living in his case is when the economy is able to provide everyone with a decent and a proper means of living other than basing on the GDP. The other important indicators of that is quality water, air, animal and plant life (Korten, 2014). Thus, the economy should be organized in a way that gives people the opportunity to work, and build a livelihood that increases their hope for a proper future and for their children.
According to David Korten, bankers are not doing productive work at all because of how they handle issues of wealth. For instance, when evaluating companies, bankers can rule out that the company is not well run basing on the stock price regardless of whether the company operating well, with policies and good business policies (Korten, 2014). Therefore, money should not be taken as a measure of quality life in a given economy.
On his view about the European Union, Korten claims that money will always be a mechanism of control. Just like the US, the union will be controlled by a few elite decision makers. In his argument against globalization, he states that countries should work with local currencies instead of global currencies. In his opinions, he suggests local currency as being more efficient compared to global currency which can lose connection in the market (Korten, 2014). He argues that few politicians in US have integrity and vision, thus, they cannot see the need for change. It will take a longer period for a politician to get the attention of the American people and have understanding to do what is necessary for change and better future. This therefore means, politicians do not faithfully fulfill what they are intended to do while in power.
References
David Korten, (2014). When Capitalism Rules the World.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vT2cDh8Ocuo
