Our New Story Has the Sacred in It

Some ecological economists have quit trying to justify their ecological perspective to other economists and turned to telling a new story instead. That story is a OneEarth story and has interactive components of ecology, economics, science, and spirituality. David Korten is one of these, as shown in his excellent essay, A New Story for a New Economy: To Find Our Human Place in a Living Universe, which he delivered to a group of ecological economists. In the new story we no longer see ourselves outside of nature, ordering and ruling it as if we are half-human, half-godlike creatures—a highly unnatural being that we’re not nearly as good at as we pretend.

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The President Is the Emperor; the CEOs Rule the World

While reading David Korten’s book, When Empires Rule the World, I had a phone conversation with a friend, Steve Gehring, a corporate attorney in Omaha. When I told him what I was reading, I wasn’t sure how he would respond. But he immediately replied, “Lee, they already do.” He wanted to emphasize that, based on his decades of experience in representing corporations, the “when” in the book title did not refer to a future time of what could happen, but that corporate rule was in effect now. Steve’s opinion added force for me to Korten’s point when Korten writes:

Corporations have emerged as the dominant governance institutions on the planet, with the largest among them reaching into virtually every country of the world and exceeding most governments in size and power. Increasingly, it is the corporate interest rather than the human interest that defines the policy agendas of states and international bodies.”

Before learning of Korten’s book, I had not yet shaken fully free from the notion that politicians and governments are the primary rulers of the world. But the book shattered that notion. What I’d learned in civics class went out the window. I realized that my view may have fit the past, but not the rapidly changing present. Not that I hadn’t been aware of the armies of well-funded corporate lobbyists and the revolving door that sent government leaders into corporations and corporate leaders into governments. But somehow that was not the same as putting corporations and their CEOs on the actual throne of being in charge. The book got me scrambling to catch up with where we are today, not where politicians and news analysts say we are. It was another moment when chunks of my worldview were changing. This chunk was not a minor adjustment. The stars that ruled the world were rearranged in my constellation of who truly were the governing powers. 

Why US AID Doesn't Bridge the Rich-Poor Countries Gap

Ever since reading When Corporations Rule the World, the international bestseller by David Korten, I’ve regarded corporations as more important than governments in figuring out how the world works.

When the book came to me as a gift in 2002, I was immediately impressed by Korten’s personal story. I read how he began his career in international development with the United States International Agency for Development (USAID), because he wanted to improve the wellbeing of poorer countries.

But he became disillusioned as he saw too many development projects bypass the people to whom he’d understood USAID wanted to give a hand up. Who benefited? Only the corporate developers working on the project and the elites of the country in which the project was being constructed. The locals, instead of seeing their lives improve, were often worse off.

When he spoke up about what he saw, he was invited to make changes. But after eight years of trying and getting little result, he decided that the USAID ship was too big for him to turn around. He left and turned to nonprofits, writing, and speaking as his preferred vehicles for changemaking. The economy became his focus as he realized that his desire to give poorer people and countries a better chance required a different economic model. That focus, of course, resonates with me as it does with his international audience.