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Social inequities: Another area in which tremendous social inequities that have occurred in the past and continue today have to do with the extractive industries. If we would but "listen," common sense tells us that the nonreplenishible resources of the Earth such as coal, oil, iron, gas, etc., belong to and should be shared as equally as possible by all the peoples of the earth. It make no sense that these limited extractive resources should be privately owned and exploited for the personal financial gain and use of a few. This practice has led to, and continues to result in the waste and inefficient use of Earth's limited supply of these resources. Again, extractive operations is another activity not amenable to the many competitor requirement of a free market system. Extractive industry is another natural monopoly activity that is best administered by a World government entity in the interest of all the World's people rather than for a few so-called owners or for certain national geographic regions.
Alternative choices: Thus, there are alternatives to a global purely competitive economy. In large measure, societies express and sustain their cultural values through their choice of economic structures. The fact that our present economic system values and rewards greed, gluttony, and disregard for the needs of others did not just happen. It is a consequence of conscious acts of choice, poorly informed they may be. Historically many non-industrial cultures held values and purposes consistent with deep understanding of living systems. Many of them were sustainable for thousands of years until aggressive empire builders we call colonialists destroyed them. Such imperialistic activities often came to a dead end when the colonial valued resources were used up. A wholly pure competitive system is not self sustaining. Its exploitive nature will inevitably use up all the resources it needs until it can no longer function.
COOPERATIVE SELF INTEREST
Living system principles: Anyone who understands the principles of living systems can apply them to human communities, nations, and the World. All evolution leading up to the creation of a human involved a system of cooperative sharing of parts. Communication and sharing of information is the activity essential for holding the whole together. Each part of the whole must cooperate, not compete, with other parts of whole if each part wants to persist and prosper. Self interest requires cooperation, not competition. Each part must fit, must functionally integrate with the whole.
A working balance: Nature works out the balance between self-interest and interest beyond self in our own body cells. Each cell as an individual unit in its own right must cooperatively and functionally fit with other cells and with other organs of the body. There is communication and trade among neighboring body cells. Materials and information are exchanged between individual cells and with organs of the body. Each cell looks out for its own interests and are pushed or pulled into cooperation necessary for survival. If every cell in an organ worked for its self-interest, the cells would kill each other off in competition. They would be disorganized to the point where the organ would no longer function. We would call such cells cancer cells--the host is destroyed in sole pursuit of individual self interest.
Social management: A pure competitive system is not self sustaining. It will inevitably use up all the resources it needs until it can no longer function. A society in which people looked out only for their individual interests results in nothing being done in the interest of their collective society. Government is set up to manage the public interest by creating public works, to limit the harmful excesses of free enterprise, and to tax profits to help meet societies needs. If government is not held responsible to the whole society, particular interests, such as large corporations that put profits ahead of people will become over influential. Neither the individualism of capitalism nor the collectivism of communism will suffice as the sole basis for a society. We must take our clues from nature and organize our societies according to living systems, with continual efforts toward mutual consistency through the cooperation of all elements of society.
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