An industry or a corporation that defiles or debases its environments as it pursues maximum monetary return cannot survive over the long term. So when we think about the unit of survival, we discover that it is not our little corner of the world, it is not our corporation or our industry, but rather the system and its relationship with other interdependent systems. Holding this perspective, those in authority of an industry or a corporation would not consider itself the unit of survival but rather it is the industry or corporation plus its energy providing environments (which includes not only the natural environment but also society and the system of humankind). Polluting one's source of life's energy is not the way to sustainability and viability.
Until we change our system of orientation--the assumptions and beliefs we hold in mind that direct our decisions and behavior--we will not extricate ourselves from the situation we have created. Like a boomerang the problems will keep coming back. Paraphrasing Einstein, we can't solve problems with the same level of thinking that created them.
What we are experiencing is the effect of the confluence of egoism, materialism and reductionism circumscribed in a mechanistic world-view--systems thinking is nowhere to be found in either development programs or education.
Therefore, what we (first) have is a meta-problem; an inability to correctly understand the problem because our system of orientation renders the underlying issue imperceptible. So we end up offering a solution to a symptom--treating symptoms--not the problem. No wonder our problems recur, although with possibly different players but it's the same problem nonetheless! Ours is a problem of mindset not markets.
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