“A free market, so lovely in theory, is no more feasible in practice than a society without laws. Democracies can sustain freedom because their citizens and representatives continually adjust, maintain, and as necessary enforce standards, rules, and laws. Markets are unequaled in providing feedback, fostering innovation, and allocating resources. Market competition is ultimately a matter of financial capital: those activities that most efficiently accrete and concentrate money gain market advantage; those that don’t are marginalized. But there is no comparable competition to improve social and natural capital, because markets for such commodities simply don’t exist. The only way those issues are dealt with is through legislation, regulation, citizen activity, and consumer pressure. Removing the laws and regulations that create market constraints leaves the body politic with very few means to promote economic democracy. The localized poor, primary forests, the stratosphere, and ecosystem viability, which are the source of life for every economy in the world, have no voice at all in market systems. That voice comes from citizen’s organizations, although when it does, it is often ignored and patronized.” -Paul Hawken in Blessed Unrest
Posted on: Sun, 27 Oct 2013 06:07:34 +0000
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