Since the Nordic country experienced the systemic failure of its entire banking sector in 2008, a number of Iceland’s senior banking executives have been arrested, sacked or sued. Grass roots organisations, including the Ministry of Ideas that was featured in the film, have since hosted a National Assembly of unprecedented scale. The government-backed Assembly was designed to focus specifically on the nation’s next steps; to agree on a set of collective values and to establish a clear vision for how to rebuild their economy from the ashes of the old. While the film did not focus on the Assembly itself, progressives would not be surprised by its outcome: participants emphasised the importance of robust public services, establishing an environmentally responsible and sustainable economy, and ensuring equality and transparency in the country’s future renaissance.

There are some important parallels between the Icelandic response to financial collapse and what concerned citizens and activists attempted to do in 2011 — from the Arab spring to the multitude of public occupations in towns and cities around the world. After the collapse of their financial sector, Icelanders took the opportunity to reflect on what went wrong. Given the various interconnected crises that humanity faces at this crucial juncture in history, it would be prudent for us all to do the same. Moreover, we need to identify the root causes of these crises and create a public dialogue to ensure that these causative factors are widely recognised and understood. Like the Icelanders, we also need to agree on the core values that should guide the reform process, and communicate a practical vision of how these values can create a more sustainable and equitable world.

Identifying the Crises We Face

Of the many crises facing humankind, none is more pressing than the reality of poverty and deprivation, a crisis that humanity has routinely failed to address since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was first adopted in 1948. Despite decades of ‘development’ pledges and donor aid, three billion people still live on less than $2.50 a day, two and a half billion do not have access to clean water and sanitation, and almost a billion people are classified as hungry. According to the World Health Organisation, around 40,000 people a day die from a lack of nutritious food, clean water and rudimentary medical care — over 14 million people every year.

Another fundamental concern is how a deregulated and globalised economy has locked large swathes of humanity into unsustainable patterns of overproduction and overconsumption. This irresponsible economic model is the real cause of our environmental problems, which include the rapid depletion of the world’s natural resources and surging carbon emissions that governments seem unable — or unwilling — to contain. We are also confronted by an ever-widening gap between rich and poor, the excessive influence of corporate power, on-going financial instability and economic uncertainty.

A commentator in Future of Hope identified one of the root causes of their financial collapse as the domination of aggressively masculine business practices sanctioned by their government. These, he went on to explain, would still be considered successful strategies if they hadn’t ultimately precipitated the country’s collapse. The same blinkered approach to commerce applies across the world. The inherent flaws in the ‘business as usual’ model remain largely unacknowledged despite the grave financial and environmental crises it has exacerbated, and policy makers continue to blindly pursue their intimate relationship with the corporate sector.

The values that have driven this aggressive and ideological approach to business and politics are not difficult to identify: self-interest, excessive competition and greed. These values are embodied in the ‘neoliberal policies’ of deregulation, liberalisation and privatisation that facilitate wealth accumulation through the pursuit of profit and endless GDP growth. We have constructed a world where national institutions and systems of global governance are very much guided by these policies. And everything from world trade, global finance, climate change mitigation, and even international development is influenced by this ideological approach to politics and policymaking.

Much more needs to be done to stimulate a popular debate about the impact of neoliberal policies on our everyday lives. Just as challenging is establishing a common vision for what a sustainable and equitable future world should look like and how to make it a reality. A key theme of the Iceland film was that of ‘sustainable sufficiency’ — the need to produce and consume only what we really need. Localising economies and rethinking patterns of international trade, production and consumption can go a long way to achieving this. But this is not enough. As Icelanders interviewed in the film appreciated, we can only succeed in creating a more sustainable world if we replace the outdated values that underpin our failed policies of the past with ones that more accurately reflect what it means to be human.

Rethinking Human Values: Sharing and Cooperation

Self-interest, competition and wealth accumulation have had their day and reaped havoc in the process. It stands to reason that their ill effects can be counterbalanced when the principles of sharing and cooperation occupy the hearts and minds of future policy makers. These are values we are all familiar with — we practice them in our homes and communities and teach them to our children. Placing international cooperation and sharing at the heart of policymaking has the potential to transform our economies, our societies and our relationship with the natural world.

The redistribution of financial resources is the logical first step in making this fundamental shift in economic, social and environmental policy. If implemented as a program on an international scale, redistribution can rapidly end deprivation and prevent needless deaths. More equitably sharing the world’s financial resources will not address the structural causes of our global malaise, but it is the most practical way to ensure people everywhere have access to basic food, water and medicine in the immediate future. Financial redistribution can also fund climate adaption and mitigation programs in developing countries, and can even help plug the hole in public finances when nations are forced to implement measures of economic austerity.

The world is awash with money, and there are many options available to governments for harnessing it for redistributive purposes. For example, hundreds of billions of dollars can be raised by closing tax havens, preventing tax evasion, implementing financial transaction taxes and a tax on carbon. Vast sums can be raised by reducing military budgets, redirecting fossil fuel subsidies and ending the most perverse subsidies provided to large scale industrial farming corporations in rich countries. It is also possible to tap into the IMF’s massive gold reserves and to harness the Fund’s Special Drawing Right’s facility. The list goes on.

Redistribution also presents a starting point for broader reforms to the global economy. Central to these in an era of dwindling natural resources and escalating emissions is the sustainable management of the global commons. Applying the principle of sharing to the way natural resources are managed requires us to recognise that they are limited in quantity and that they must be distributed and consumed more equitably across the world. By conserving and regulating our use of the world’s resources through this understanding, economic sharing can help nations to move away from patterns of overconsumption and excessive carbon emissions.

Building World Public Opinion

Future of Hope conveys the message that humanity’s entrepreneurial spirit can ultimately overcome adversity and rebuild life for the better. This hope and vision will be sorely needed in the coming years as campaigners continue to highlight injustice and demand that governments enact reforms that are commensurate with the basic needs of the majority of the world.

The crises we face and the movements campaigning for change are an increasingly global phenomenon. The process of reform, therefore, must also take place on an international scale. A worldwide public debate about these issues is something that until recently might have seemed an unlikely possibility. But with so many options for global collaboration now available — all turbocharged by social media platforms and the extended reach of the ‘networked individual’ — it is entirely conceivable that world public opinion will eventually take its rightful place as the real superpower in world affairs.

As the burgeoning array of movements for social and economic justice continue to connect across national borders, it is clear that our collective progress depends on the growth in our sense of global unity and an appreciation of humanity’s interdependence. Within this new paradigm of collective responsibility and vision, it seems only natural for nations to shift away from upholding the values of self-interest, competition and greed, and to focus instead on sharing the world’s financial and natural resources more equitably and sustainably.

• Future of Hope is a documentary film following individuals that strive to change the world of consumerism, a system of credit and debt that the Icelandic economy was built upon for the past 10 years or more.

The schismatic choice offered by the Union was reflected in the motion: ‘This House would put economic growth before combating climate change’. Some would call this a false choice as both are arguably important — although not for the notable global warming sceptics who stood firmly in support of preserving growth and not the climate: Viscount Monkton, Lords Lawson and Leach, and James Delingpole.

In a sense they were right — it’s not a false choice; governments will never solve the climate crisis unless they rethink their obsession with economic growth. But my opponents didn’t agree with this perspective. Their reaction to my address was summarised by Delingpole in his Telegraph blog the following day, where I was branded a communist – a sentiment liberally applied during the debate to any other ‘greens’ who might express a concern for the environment. His views represent a common and defensive overreaction to the simple fact that endless economic growth on a planet with finite resources is unsustainable, and to the suggestion that we need to reconsider the role of growth as a panacea to all the world’s problems, particularly climate change.  

Whilst a charmingly unbalanced Monkton entertained The House with his soliloquies and mathematical formulae, it became clear to me that the debate over anthropogenic climate change is a red herring – the science alone is conclusive enough. Of greater concern was how the sceptics dismissed the view that growth is unsustainable by justifying its pursuit for the sake of ending world poverty. The real challenge for those who take a more holistic view on the converging crises of climate change, global poverty and inequality is how to confront the dogmatic belief that humanity’s prosperity is entirely dependent on the growth of GDP.

As pointed out by an enthusiastic interjection during the debate, even parties on the left of the political spectrum are guided by the assumption that the economy must always grow. But the snares of this belief have long been identified by progressive economists, and even a cursory analysis of economic growth reveals its dangerous shortcomings: growth pursued at all costs is ecologically unsustainable, socially unjust, and often unnecessary.

The ‘limits to growth’ argument is well documented, and surely even the most scientific of climate change deniers couldn’t disagree that nature’s resources are in short supply. Our economic activity is dependent upon the ecological limits of the planet — limits that we have already pushed far beyond. We are currently consuming resources 40 percent faster than nature can either replenish them or reabsorb the pollution and waste that our economic activity generates.

The notion that improvements in efficiency from technological advances can deliver us from this ecological destruction has also been discredited. The Sustainable Development Commission (UK) clearly drying up despite any increases in the size of the economic pie; in the 1980’s, 2.2 percent of global growth went to the poor, compared to only 0.6 percent in the 1990’s.

The consequence of this skewed distribution of growth is, unsurprisingly, that the world is increasingly unequal, with the richest ten percent having accumulated 3,000 times more wealth than the poorest ten percent. The benefits of growth have been increasingly concentrated in the hands of a relatively small number of big corporations, as well as 500 well-placed billionaires who have seen their fortunes soar in spite of the global financial crisis.

The ‘rising tide’ has failed to lift all boats, and is now promising to be environmentally disastrous. A more sustainable and just economy could still include economic growth, but – in the face of resource depletion, peak oil and environmental pollution — that growth can no longer afford to neglect the ecological limits of the planet. And in the face of unprecedented levels of global hunger and poverty, is it really an assertion of ‘communism’ or simply common sense to state that growth must be rooted more locally, allowing communities to drive the creation of economic activity and benefit most from its rewards?

The options available to policy-makers to achieve this transformation are plentiful; what is missing, as always, is the necessary political will. Perhaps the biggest barrier to sustainable development is the sheer stubbornness of many within the political establishment to consider an alternative to GDP growth, and the reluctance of those who benefit most from the status quo to open their minds to simple reason

This long-standing gulf between government rhetoric and action was preoccupying scientists attending the International Scientific Congress on Climate Change in the Danish capital during March, and many of these specialists have since engaged in activism of a kind not seen since the period of nuclear proliferation during the 1950s and 1960s. Acknowledging the failure of governments to date, experts at the meeting urged world leaders to resist the influence of vested interests and act decisively to avert a series of devastating ecological and social consequences.

Whilst Nicholas Stern, one of the UK’s leading climate change scientists and author of the Stern report, berated the British government’s failure to pursue strong and effective policies, other outspoken and prominent scientists took to the street in protest. Dr. James Hansen, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS), joined more than 1,000 campaigners in Coventry (UK) as part of a Climate Change Day of Action in March. Demonstrators similarly voiced concerns over government inaction at the Put People First and Climate Camp protests during the G20 Summit in London. Dr. Hansen, like many in the climate change movement, believes that our politicians are failing the planet, and that direct action through protests is now crucial in order to combat heavy lobbying from the business sector that has prevented the necessary legislative interventions.

What these scientists-cum-activists now faced is the same barrier to progress that campaigners have expressed for decades: a stubborn adherence to economic growth and corporate welfare by policymakers. So entrenched is the attachment to continually expanding the economy that Gordon Brown, acting as ‘chancellor’ of the G20 Summit, made the resumption of global economic growth a key target for the meeting. Ministers hope that the trillion dollar stimulus that was agreed upon will go a long way to re-establishing economic ‘normality’. More recently, the same ministers pledged billions to the world’s lender of last resort — the IMF, to provide additional debt-based credit to stimulate growth around the world. The underlying rationale behind these policies is that governments must preserve economic growth at all costs, and the best way to safeguard growth is by protecting those businesses that generate the most income.

Profiting from Climate Change

The danger of continuing such a ‘growth at all costs’ approach is amplified when only financially profitable solutions to the climate crisis are pursued by governments. In most industrialized countries the largest and most influential businesses are oil corporations and car manufacturers that wield significant lobbying power over governments, and a responsibility to their shareholders before any commitment to reduce CO2 emissions. Given both the overriding commitment by corporations to profit and a dependency by the population on the consumption of oil, there is little incentive for these industries to encourage people to consume less fossil fuel. As one example, car manufactures have traditionally prioritized speed and aesthetics over efficiency, and some of the most fuel efficient cars available today are less economical in fuel use than those available over two decades ago — particularly in the US. Whilst this approach has contributed to gross domestic product (GDP) and generated huge incomes for the car industry, the average ‘miles per gallon’ usage in US cars is currently less than it was in the 1908 model T Ford.

A spiraling level of economic and financial competition between nations is also stifling effective agreement and action on emission reductions, whilst continuing to aggravate the often-tense relationship between countries in the Global North and South. Given the competitive nature of the global economy, most governments resist enacting tough legislation to curb emissions in the fear of losing their competitive financial edge. They prefer instead to use less effective market-based mechanisms that will facilitate a continued prioritization of economic growth.

Green taxes on driving cars or flying in airplanes discriminate against the poor and are only half measures compared to stricter legislation, such as outright bans on cars in cities or domestic flights. Despite being a key mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol, setting an agreed ‘cap’ on emission levels and then allowing some companies to ‘trade’ their allowances to other firms for profit doesn’t reduce emissions as effectively as simply legislating for larger reductions. Whilst strict legislation would force corporations to innovate greener technology, ‘Cap and Trade’ results in incremental and insufficient adjustments to emissions with a view to creating new markets and expanding profits. Carbon offsets are an increasingly popular way of reducing emissions, and present yet another business opportunity that contributes to GDP. Palliative measures such as planting trees or purchasing offsets sold by ‘greener industries’, while at the same time pursuing business as usual, does little to mitigate the unsustainable and damaging activities that emit greenhouse gases in the first place.

An understanding of how business opportunity has trumped effective policy can be drawn from a host of other market friendly solutions to global warming. Bio-fuel expansion accelerates climate change through increased deforestation, the destruction of ecosystems, peat drainage, and an increasing use of nitrate fertilizers. Policies that encourage ‘clean coal’ production or carbon capture and storage (CCS) help governments to justify the continued building of coal plants, thereby appealing to the fossil fuel lobby and obfuscating the deeper issues. And the nuclear lobby is using climate change to revive their flagging industry despite serious concerns over hazardous wastes, a lengthy development process, and clear evidence of its marginal capacity to reduce emissions.

Ultimately, none of these options addresses our over-reliance on fossil fuels, the problems with continued industrial expansion, or the need for more sustainable modes living and working. Instead of limiting advertising, restricting the overuse of pollutants or legislating for deeper cuts in emissions in key polluting industries, governments and corporations have adopted a strategy that leaves the average citizen feeling responsible for solving the climate crisis themselves.

The tendency of governments to trust business models and not strong legislation is skillfully masked by shifting guilt and responsibility onto ‘consumers’, and much of the public debate still remains focused around recycling, changing light bulbs and re-using carrier bags. By reducing their carbon footprints and making choices that are more responsible in of lifestyle and consumption habits, people in the developed world may try to live more sustainable lives. Whilst engagement by the public is crucial and personal adjustments are necessary, consumer measures are limited in their effectiveness and generally only possible in the richest countries.

Moreover, the ideal of ‘consumer choice’ in goods and services is predicated on the continued consumption of natural resources, the pollution from which is one of the main drivers of climate change. By any assessment, it would take decades for consumer preferences to re-orient the current model of production and consumption that remains driven by the need to increase profit levels and share prices endlessly.

A more suitable strategy would be for governments to enact legislation targeting the source of emissions, for example by regulating the exploitation of natural resources by industrial producers, including the full environmental costs of production into the price of goods, and discouraging the all-pervading consumer culture that is increasingly the focus of life, even in the developing world. These and similar measures would shift the responsibility away from the end ‘consumer’ who is presently encouraged to continue over-consuming, albeit more conscientiously.

Revisiting the Limits of Growth

Endless economic growth is clearly unsustainable as GDP can only increase through the continued production and consumption of the world’s resources. This paradigm, despite its application to almost all aspects of international and domestic policies, is inherently flawed since we only have finite resources and a limited capacity to absorb emissions. As the oft-quoted UK Interdependence report by the New Economics Foundation estimated, if all countries consumed as much as the US per capita, we would require over five planets worth of resources to survive.

The relentless process of economic expansion largely relies on inputs from nature, and consequently ravages the environment whilst releasing huge quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere. A recent report by the Sustainable Development Commission in the UK summarized the conflict between growth and the environment, stating; “In the last quarter of a century the global economy has doubled, while an estimated 60% of the world’s ecosystems have been degraded. Global carbon emissions have risen by 40% since 1990 (the Kyoto Protocol ‘base year’). Significant scarcity in key resources — such as oil — may be less than a decade away.”

Writing previously in the New Scientist, Tim Jackson, the report’s main author, equated emissions rates to consumption rates and calculated that, if we factor in moderate economic growth, the necessary cuts in emissions will require an 11-fold reduction in the current European average consumption rate. Yet any coherent plan, requisite technology or financing to achieve this universal decarbonization of the world’s economy is still far from being realized.

There are wider social issues that accompany an entirely growth-based approach to economic development. For example, numerous studies have demonstrated that economic growth is not an adequate measure of wellbeing or happiness. As a society, despite a phenomenal increase in material wealth, we are no happier now than we were in the 1970s. If fairly distributed, the proceeds from growth can be important, particularly in the developing world where it can significantly enhance well-being by helping to secure basic human needs. But once these needs have been met, as is largely the case in rich countries, increases in wealth cease to contribute significantly to well-being.

Even as a means of poverty reduction, economic growth is extremely inefficient and uneven in its benefits. The proceeds of growth are not distributed fairly enough to justify an adherence to the ‘trickle down’ theory, and there is no coherent global welfare system to compensate the increasing numbers of ‘losers’ in the global market system. Not only has inequality in wealthier countries increased in recent decades, but levels of inequality between countries also continue to rise. The minimal quantities of aid redistributed by donor countries to compensate those who cannot afford to pay market prices for their essential goods and services is also fast dwindling, as donor countries have fewer resources to spare in the wake of the worsening global financial crisis.

The poor in the developing world also suffer disproportionately from the ‘externalities of growth.’ As demand for more goods continues to rise, and resources are extracted and then consumed as products — often many thousands of miles away — various hazardous by-products are created along the way. These include toxic chemicals used by the extractive industries, chemical fertilizers used by agri-business, and carbon emissions from machinery and transport.

Not only can poorer countries simply not afford to address many of the environmental consequences of this process, they will often be the first to be threatened by the consequences of climate change as it affects agricultural production. Up to 85 percent of the population in some of the poorest countries depend directly on crops, livestock, fisheries or forests for their daily income or sustenance, and estimates suggest that crop yields could reduce by a third in many poorer countries by 2050 as a direct result of global warming. Sub-Saharan Africa, the smallest contributor to CO2 emissions, will be the hardest hit.

There is a growing acknowledgment amongst scientists and campaigners that the only way out of the quagmire of growth is an immediate shift in policy to favor public and environmental interests over those of big business and the profit imperative. But it is also necessary to achieve a wider appreciation of how the pursuit of economic growth accelerates global warming and mitigates prevention — a basic fact that should play a key role in climate change campaigns. Without greater public awareness of the political and ideological obstructions to action, governments are likely to continue reinventing the same competitive, growth-centric policies that are the root cause of the climate crises.

Only public engagement can finally urge governments to act more decisively on climate change, although this involvement must go beyond individual efforts to recycle waste, buy responsibly or reduce carbon footprints. The media has already well documented the role of non-violent protests in reshaping public opinion and policy, and the recent heavy-handed approach by the UK government to squash the G20 protests signals a growing concern amongst policymakers of how informed citizens can quickly damage their political reputation. It is time to step up efforts to educate, engage and mobilize world opinion on the real causes and solutions to climate change, enabling the global public to take the lead in forcing governments to act.

According to the report, published at the midway point in the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) process, the number of people living on less than one dollar a day has barely changed over the past seven years, declining less than 5% to 41.1%. As much of a concern is the increasingly slow rate by which the number of people living in extreme poverty is reducing.

In line with this disappointing trend there has been little change in the number of children under five who remain hungry and underweight; a mere four per cent decrease was observed between 1990 and 2005. Over the same 15-year period, mortality rates for children under five dropped by less than three per cent and only an additional five per cent of the population have gained access to basic sanitation, leaving 37% of people without this necessity. The number of deaths from AIDS is also accelerating — a staggering two million people in 2006.

The report also highlights the impact of global warming which is already being felt throughout the region. Recent examples include the intensification of droughts and desertification in Kenya, the accelerated melting of ice field peaks in Tanzania, and the increased flooding experienced in the Niger Delta. The effect of climactic change in sub-Saharan Africa inevitably heightens the scarcity of resources such as food and water, fuels conflict and exacerbates poverty. For instance, only 42% of the rural population presently have access to clean water but this, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), could soon include up to 250 million Africans.

Despite important yet limited improvements in education, healthcare and agricultural productivity in a few countries, the overall trends for poverty reduction, access to clean water and basic healthcare are continuing to plummet. The G8 leaders concur in theory that nothing could be more important than preventing the imminent deaths of millions of Africans who are being indirectly denied the right to these essential resources. Yet as the failed Gleneagles promises for increased aid to Africa demonstrate, global political priorities and economic policy address poverty indirectly, if at all, focusing instead on creating economic growth and a strong corporate sector.

G8 ministers managed to placate many campaigners at the end of the 2006 Gleneagles Summit with inflated promises for more aid. The conclusion of this year’s Heiligendam summit, however, has once again united civil society in its condemnation of the G8’s apparent self interest. According to the UN, the MDG to half extreme poverty will only be achieved if the current pace of aid donation is doubled. Not only is such commitment extremely unlikely, but research also shows that economic growth and international aid will never be sufficient to address poverty to any meaningful extent. The Chronic Poverty Research Centre has calculated that even if the Millennium Development Goal for poverty and hunger is achieved by 2015, 900 million people will still be living on less than one dollar a day.

According to the IMF, Africa is currently enjoying robust economic growth. It is also exporting more food than ever before through world trade and corporate investment, alongside an improvement in productivity. In light of the persistence and prevalence of extreme poverty, however, the relationship between these economic improvements and the provision of the most basic welfare is intangible at best. Although it is undeniable that this equation is complicated by biased international trade rules and the corruption of both African governments and multinational corporations, it is also clear that the neoliberal policies adopted by the IMF, World Banks and WTO are incapable of addressing poverty in regions where it remains a priority.

A New Strategy is Long Overdue

The data on poverty in Africa strongly suggests that the internationalization of market forces over the past quarter century has kept Africa impoverished, whilst simultaneously creating unimaginable wealth for a relative minority in the global north. The ‘trickle-down effect,’ which claims that financial returns from commercial exports and growth will eventually benefit lower socio-economic groups, seems to have been reduced to an ‘intermittent-drip effect’ in the case of Africa. This is unsurprising given that domestic production is increasingly geared toward exporting cash crops to the international market, a sector dominated by agribusiness giants. As a consequence of this arrangement, which is in line with international free trade rules for developing countries, local producers and economies loose out as corporate profits are repatriated abroad or paid out in executive salaries and shareholder dividends.

Any economist can confirm that a market economy will increase inequality by disproportionately rewarding those with greater economic, financial or political power. Only government intervention to redistribute wealth can remedy this basic flaw, yet redistributive mechanisms are absent both in the global economy and in many African countries where economic adjustment is geared to debt repayment and not welfare, courtesy of the IMF.

The good news about economic growth rates in sub-Saharan Africa is further compromised by the fragility of booming commodity prices. Being primarily an agricultural continent, Africa relies on the export of a small number of commodities to create the growth that can eventually finance welfare services. Not only is this dependency on exports to global markets a risky way to underwrite the social safety net, but it undermines the simple logic of prioritising food security. Instead of securing food for African children, a third of whom are underweight, the free trade regime redistributes domestic food production to other parts of the world. Given the urgent needs of the continent, such measures defy economic, social and moral sense.

Africa has, for the past 25 years, provided a clear demonstration of the dislocation between economic growth and the provision of basic human needs. The case reveals overwhelming evidence of the need for an alternative principle upon which to organize the global economy, yet this fact continues to be ignored by key policy makers in the US and EU.

Any significant shift in international economic policy away from a purely market based system will inevitably be difficult to implement given the political and financial dominance of the G8 nations. However, a total lack of willingness to even accept that there may be a more efficient way to organise resource distribution is negligent in the extreme. This conservative view is likely to be expounded by those who gain most from a competitive economy, namely the strongest and fittest nations, their ministers and corporations. For these vested interests, sharing the resources which they have ownership or control over would simply mean diluting their strength, reducing their profits and curtailing their economic growth.

The decision that humanity as a whole must make is whether we are prepared to serve the needs of the majority or perpetuate a system that perverts economic democracy and dismisses any sense of common unity and morality.