We hear that directors of FTSE100 companies had a pay rise of forty-nine per cent last year. Quakers are among many who question whether our current economic system, with its increasing inequality and instability, ecological destructiveness and promotion of superficial materialist values, can really be redirected towards a just and sustainable society. We have companies shifting profits abroad to avoid taxes, private banks controlling the money supply but not bonuses, trade rules that sink, or keep, many countries in poverty and speculation that causes asset booms and raises the price of food for the poor.

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Comments

• Posted by fatbrit007 on February 20, 2012

  Thanks Gill,

  Great article - with you all the way

  There are certainly solutions and actions we can take - supporting http://www.positivemoney.org.uk, local currencies, CEC, tax justice network, your local CLT, your local Credit Union, your local, national and global Occupy, and Quakernomics all makes sense

  But most of all it’s vital that as lay spiritual seekers we believe that change is not only possible, but it’s down to us to manifest it

  Mainstream economists are suppine slaves to growth and we know that’s folly

  All The Best and keep the faith

  Jon
  Jon Long
  fatbrit007

• Posted by Sooo on February 23, 2012

  Hi Gill, Fab article highlighting umbrella perspective.  I am about to take the speaker’s training with Positive Money Campaign and am wondering if you see a gap in what Ben Dyson and his crew are doing so far, when you talk of: “Better banking and democratic control of the money supply would need more specific changes. More importantly, there is a big question mark about how such changes could be brought about and how the conflicts of economic interests can be handled in that process.”  Have you seen their “Bank of England [Creation of Currency Bill”? This addresses the issue of the transition to the proposed 100% reserve banking, in a practical way.  At the moment I think the team is concentrating on getting Jo Public educated in the way the current system actually works, differently from mainstream assumptions.  But I do wonder if we as a community might usefully consider processing these “conflicts of economic interests” you refer to, ourselves, rather than simply make the present system ‘the enemy’?  Eg when it comes to tax, I know well the bit of me, as a self-employed person, that does all I can to reduce my tax bill.  Seeking to become ever more powerful is a natural dynamic too, that operates in families, all kinds of communities, and even co-operatives. Perhaps we can talk more about this at the forthcoming Woodbrooke weekend.  Thanks for getting me thinking along these lines.
  Sue H.