In addition to being an author, Speth has been active in American politics and the environmental movement. He has served as a White House adviser to President Jimmy Carter, led the largest UN program for international development, and served as dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Speth is now professor at the Vermont Law School, and is senior fellow at Demos and the United Nations Foundation.
Speth identifies the primary drivers to our current environmental, social and educational struggles in the United States as stemming from "The unleashing of a virulent, fast-growing strain of corporate-consumerist capitalism which rewards the pursuit of profit, growth, and power while doing little to encourage a concern for people, place or planet." The second primary driver to our struggles was the U.S. role in the Cold War. The Cold War and the rise of an American security state powerfully influenced our political economic system, which strengthened the priority given to economic growth. This growth then gave rise to the military-industrial complex, that President Eisenhower warned us against, while draining time and money away from domestic needs and many international challenges.
Speth identifies several critical features of our failing operating system.
Our system gives priority to economic growth while neglecting and deterring social and environmental needs.
The profit motive powerfully affects corporate behavior. Thus, wages and benefits are kept low while social, environmental and economic costs are externalized upon the culture at large and not the firm.
The constant spread of the market into new areas are costly for the environment and the society. Thus, we have surrendered education, mental health services for the poor (see this author's previous article which mentions the abuse by APS Health Care), and prisons.
Polyanyi apparently saw this kind of danger when she wrote that "to allow the market mechanism to be sole director of the Fate of human beings and their natural community ...would result in the demolition of society." Speth (2012), p. 6
According to a League of Women Voters article, this empowering of the corporation has led to abuse of the system as reflected in the following horror story:
On February 18, 2011, a federal jury convicted former Luzerne County Common Pleas Juvenile Court Judge Mark A. Ciavarella, Jr., on 12 of 39 counts of racketeering, money laundering and conspiracy in connection with the infamous "Kids for cash" scheme. Ciavarella and former J Judge Michael T. Conahan reportedly received $2.6 million in kickbacks for sending thousands of juveniles to two private detention centers.
Could the problem be any more clear?
What can we do about it?
Speth identifies the following transitions that can help bring us to a more just and sustainable community:
Economic Growth: From growth fetish to post growth society, from GDP growth to growth in human welfare and democratically determined priorities.
The Market: from near laissez-faire to powerful market governance in the public interest; from dishonest prices to honest ones
The Corporation: From shareholder primacy to stakeholder primacy; from one ownership and motivation model to new business models and the democratization of capital
Money and Finance: From Wall Street to Main Street, from money created through bank debt to money created by the government (of the people, author's addition)
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
2
1
1
