David Korten
David Korten
David C. Kortenis an American author, former professor of the Harvard Business School, political activist, prominent critic of corporate globalization, and "by training and inclination a student of psychology and behavioral systems". His best-known publication is, When Corporations Rule the World. In 2011, he was named an Utne Reader visionary...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionActivist
CountryUnited States of America
years looks debt
If you look internationally over the last 50 years there have been improvements in the third world, but in the last 20 years the reverse has happened, with debt crises and increased poverty.
enemy democracy capitalism
Capitalism and the market are presented as synonymous, but they are not. Capitalism is both the enemy of the market and democracy.
wall needs fabric
Wall Street sees a social fabric or social contract as inefficiencies, which need to be removed.
money mechanism
Money is a mechanism for control.
historical excess world
An active propaganda machinery controlled bv the world's largest corporations constantly reassures us that consumerism is the path to happiness, governmental restraint of market excess is the cause our distress, and economic globalization is both a historical inevitability and a boon to the human species.
practice long rogues
As long as you have a system that is based on the rational that if you are making money you are thereby making a contribution to society, these financial rogue practices will continue.
community needs levels
The current system is organized around financial values over life values. We need to shift that locus of power down to the community level because the financial markets recognize only money and thereby only financial values.
cutting innovation environmental
Corporate globalists and the corporate empires they serve may be at the cutting edge of technological innovation, but socially and environmentally they are relics of a bygone era of imperial colonial rule, elite privilege, and state-sanctioned plunder.
inspiring believe honor
To create a world in which life can flourish and prosper we must replace the values and institutions of capitalism with values and institutions that honor life, serve life's needs, and restore money to its proper role as servant. I believe we are in fact being called to take a step to a new level of species consciousness and function.
suicidal acceptance people
When the institutions of money rule the world, it is perhaps inevitable that the interests of money will take precedence over the interests of people. What we are experiencing might best be described as a case of money colonizing life. To accept this absurd distortion of human institutions and purpose should be considered nothing less than an act of collective, suicidal insanity.
inspirational-life earth balanced
If there is to be a human future, we must bring ourselves into balanced relationship with one another and the Earth.
community needs credit
There was a time in the United States when most of our financial institutions were local. Which essentially meant that local communities were able to create their own credit, or their own money, in response to their own needs. We still depended on banks, but it was a much more democratic process.
american-activist companies increase
But in the past, US companies have been able to increase their profits through downsizing in the US, through colonizing other people's resources, and through the increase of globalization.
absolutely american-activist bigger essential increased order picture poverty solutions
In order to find solutions to the increased poverty around the world, it is absolutely essential to keep the bigger picture in mind.