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Is the current economic system inherently corrupt? If so, how do we go about dismantling it? by Glen |
 
Antoschka - Ekaterina Moshaeva: This is true. The modern economic system is unfortunately corrupt, and it grows to an absurd limit. In clowning they call it „buffoonery”, when a little comb turns into one which is three meters long. We are arriving at absurdity, at the last border of that absurdity, which we have been practised and cultivated for centuries, because concentration of property and of economical resources refers to a small group of people: Eight most powerful countries have concentrated 80 percent of economical production. These 8 countries come to only 25 percent of the whole world population. The rest population gets only 20 percent of the economic resources and product distribution. It is extremely unfair, but I believe that we would come to understand this injustice, and that’s why in future there would be such a planetary government which would be represented by persons with a progressive and not an obsolete self-awareness. I think that we achieved a lot concerning technological progress, a lot possibilities of technics in the last century, but we do not really proceeded. |
Abbas Beydoun: All economic systems suffer from corrupt, even it is said that corrupt is a main part of these systems. I do not know how we can get rid of this corrupt. |
Alvaro Restrepo: Corruption is a word that I think should be also in the center of the discussion. During many years, I have stated in my country that as long as corruption is not declared as a crime against humanity at the same level as other crimes against humanity, things would not change. The issue of corruption -- political corruption, I think is one of the most important to be taken into consideration. I do think that the current global economic system is inherently corrupt. And, I think that for example, in a country where people, where children are starving or don’t have any educational opportunities, somebody, a leader, a political leader that can steal the money of the educational system or of the health system, he should be judged for genocide. And, I think this can only be done as a global strategy. The United Nations should create a tribunal to judge the economic corruption crimes the same as they judge the war crimes. The politician that steals the money of a health system or of an educational system in a country should be judged with the same severe standards as a genocide crime. |
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by Ana Lucy Bengochea | 0 votes | 
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Andries Botha: I think it’s oversimplistic to simply to say that the prevailing economic system is inherently corrupt. But it is fair to say that it has a great tendency to be so. How do we change it? Well, we need to change the relationship between governments and the forms of governments and the capital system. Our democracy is contingent on its ability to be financed by capital and as such, it’s beholden to it, in one form or another. It continues to reward it, it continues to valorize it, and it seems to me that all power is intimately related to how money is made. The nature, fundamental nature of power is to persuade people by way of legislature, by way of moral and ethical value systems to conform to the agencies of state and the way in which money is made. I’m not sure how we would go about changing it. That’s why I’m quite hesitant to offer a definitive opinion about our political or economic system. I guess it all goes back down to the idea that individuals have to change their axis of value in relationship to how we govern and how we make money. |
Angaangaq Lyberth: Glenn, what an interesting and exciting question you pose to me today. I’ve been part of the fight for the rights of the people for many, many years now. And I have contributed personally thousands upon thousands upon thousands of dollars to the poor of the world, the starving ones of the world, those hit by the disasters, being the tsunamis to the earthquakes to the droughts to the floods and God knows what else. And it’s really fascinating to watch how the money are being distributed. Remember back in the, thirty years ago when we collected enormous amounts of money for the starvings in Africa? Where you come from? We collected enough money to be able to feed the entire nation, entire continent of Africa. Did the money arrive there? No, they didn’t arrive there. Somebody kept them. You and me, by contributing we made people extremely wealthy. I mean, literally so wealthy that you could see the oozing of the wealth out of their pockets. While those money we intended to be given to these people never arrived. Do you think that’s right? I pray to God that you don’t think it is right. What can we do about it? You do something about it. As I will do tomorrow and today. Absolute corruption everywhere. Not only in Germany, not only in the United States, not only in Capetown, South Africa, not only in New Greenland, everywhere else. Tremendous, tremendous corruption. So what are we going to do? What do you want to do, Glenn? I will help you. Whatever you decide to help mankind I will stand next to you. |
Anthony Arnove: I think the current economic system is absolutely corrupt. But the question of corruption can sometimes be individualized. It can be seen in terms of individuals who are seeking to personally benefit by going outside of the bounds of normal economic behavior, engaging in collusion, lying, deceit, in order to advance their own personal interests. And so we often have under capitalism regulation of individual or corporate behavior to try to single out certain actions as being beyond the bounds of the acceptable operation of the economic system. But the reality is, corruption is inherit in our economic system. Our economic system encourages individual greed, competition, and systematically encourages corruption, deceit, in order to maximize profit. So it's not a question of individuals. It's not a question of a few bad apples. It's at the root of the system. So, in terms of thinking about an alternative of how we dismantle the economic system, I think we have to look at who has power under the economic system. And the irony that Karl Marx pointed out – it's appropriate to think about Marx given where we are today in Germany – and given the world that we confront which matches so much his description of the Communist Manifesto of what globalization was beginning to produce in his time and certainly has proven so true today – is that you have to understand that under capitalism the people who seemingly have the least power, the working class people, actually have a tremendous power. They make the profits that keep the system running. They produce the goods. They run the factories. They transport the goods. And if those people withhold their labor; if those people organize their collective power – individually they may not have power, but collectively they have a tremendous power – they can transform the system. They can dismantle the system. They can build something new in its place. |
Anuradha Koirala: The economic system is corrupt inherently. Well, but we should not try to dismantle the system, but direct it. Dismantling is destruction, so we should try to correct it. |
Anuradha Mittal: Well, the current economic system which has come to be dominated by the interests of corporations, a handful of monopolies, yes, it is corrupt because it is not built to cater to the needs of the people. It is built to cater to the interests of these corporations. And it is really about understanding those power structures and the way the economic system works, whether it is the so-called free trade liberalization, deregulation which all sounds good; but this is really about a few people, few corporations having more and more control of this world. So, as long as we understand this economic system that despite it being called free, for example free market policies, is not really free, but it is about colonization, it is about extracting the resources of the many to basically cater to the interest of few, we will have an economic system which will not reflect our needs, our aspirations, our desires for a different kind of world. So, I think in terms of dismantling it, we have to a) understand this economic system. This economic system is about few people gaining control over our resources. 2) Acknowledging it that we as consumers by keeping quiet how we actually sustain that economic system. And 3) it’s about gaining our citizen power: that the governments have to be about what we want them to be, to make them accountable to us, and that they need to regulate on behalf of the citizens, of the people, as well as the planet itself. So, I think it is about understanding this economic system. |
Ashok Gangadean: Again, the current economic system is ambiguous because it’s complex, it’s not just one system at work, there are multiple economic systems according to the culture and consciousness. Ego-based consciousness, ego-based cultures, ego-centric which carry this fragmenting, objectifying, reductive attitude between oneself and others and everything and objectifies that kind of economic system is inherently corrupt. The culture of ego-based culture is corrupt and corrupting in contrast to the kind of awakened culture that all our great wisdom, traditions have been teaching. So, the question of what is corrupt and not corrupt, what is just, and inherently right, and right-minded is going to depend upon these two cultural realities. So, a holistic integral culture that is not corrupt will not be violating the needs of the people across the planet so that dismantling is a word perhaps I wouldn’t use. I would rather say to the extent that the dominant cultural force is ego-based, it does reflect the corruption inherent in ego-centric culture making across the board because ego-centric culture is corrupt in terms of being of whole human being, in terms of being integral ourselves, in terms of relationships between one another, in terms of the relationship between cultures and religions where there is abysmal violence, all of that is symptomatic of the fundamental distortion and corruption in ego-based culture, so that what has to be dismantled, as all our great teachers have taught, is not so much to be dismantled, de-constructed, but transformed creatively into more integrative whole and compassionate ways. And, that is a great challenge we face on the planet at this time in terms of moving from an unsustainable economic way of life which is corrupt in an economic and cultural way to a form of culture that is truly sustainable and based upon the human values of compassion and care. And, that’s which is what the dismantling or transformation of the old economic dysfunctional way will be. |
Audrey Kitagawa: The current economic system favors the consolidation of wealth into the hands of a few, and therefore you're going to have some wealthy people who are also very powerful people. To the extent that our economic system allows this disparity of wealth and distribution of wealth and resources into fewer and fewer hands, then we can say that the current economic system favors the wealthy and favors the sustenance and maintenance of their positions of domination, control, and wealth. And that these wealthy people would not be supportive of dismantling the system that allowed them to achieve that state. So we really need to look at the reformation of our market fundamentalism that has really deregulated the free market and see how we can reform as well the financial institutions that also support the distribution of wealth into the consolidation of fewer and fewer hands at the expense of the many. So we need to look at reform so that the distribution of the world's resources and the wealth that is generated from it become more balanced. |
Benjamin Fahrer: It is more those within the system who corrupt it. However the systems based of ownership of marketing of products. It functions well but can go corrupt, extremely corrupt. Because of the intentions of the people within it, the intentions of those people within this economic system is to gain more wealth, to hoard that wealth, to control the resources that they can profit off of these. So, in some way, it is very hard to separate those that are within the system and the system itself. And if those that are operating within the system are corrupting it then it could be looked at that the system is corrupt. To dismantle the corporation, the corporate rule, is not to dismantle necessarily economic system but put back in place the checks and balances of corporations. To revoke the status of personhood that they’re claiming, you’re not taking responsibility for. This type of change comes in many different forms, yet the main power lies in those who make the choices to support the corporations by purchasing their products. In the beginning, corporations were setup as a way to benefit the whole. But systematically, through different laws and riders in different governments, they have removed this checks and balances to a now they have full freedom and actually are controlling a lot of the laws and they can benefit from this way. So we need to return back to its original intention and get the people who are corrupting the system accountable. And remember to breath deep. |
Benson Venegas: The economic system is not inherently corrupt, but it's carried out by people. People are easily corrupt, if they're driven by their financial interests and not by values. So the point here is that what we really need to change is not the system. What we really need to change or what we really need to improve, is people values. The way people perceive their responsibility of their actions, into the current economic situation. For instance, if everyone would follow the law, probably everything would be easier. If everyone would be - have values around the things that they're doing regarding to their economic - in their economy, probably would have a fair, or equitable, more democratic, and transparent situation that would allow a broader, and just development around the world. |
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