“If current predictions of population growth prove accurate and patterns of human activity on the planet remain unchanged, science and technology may not be able to prevent either irreversible degradation of the environment or continued poverty for much of the world.”

Royal Society of London and U.S. National Academy of Sciences, 1992

The economic/financial system on which the world depends on for dear life is, in fact, an edifice. As such, like a house, it must necessarily have a foundation, or floor (for essential support), a roof (to safely store profits), and windows, to allow clean air and to break the monotony of incarceration. But it has no floor and no roof. Instead, it rejects the idea of a roof on grounds that perpetual exponential growth is possible, desirable and necessary. Indeed, by convention, gross domestic product (GDP) is measured in percentage terms, not fixed amounts. To illustrate, exponential growth produces doubling and redoubling and redoubling at variable points in time; lineal growth occurs when the increase is a constant amount over a given period of time. Thus, to accommodate the former, the edifice in which the tumorous accumulation must be stored cannot possibly have a roof: the pressure would simply pop it out with a bang, and it would continue to grow uncontrollably. By the same token, its growing weight would crush whatever unfortunate entities remain trapped at the base. The question is, at what point would this system implode of its own weight?

Exponential economic growth is not a natural occurrence in a finite world. It is entirely human-made, designed entirely to accommodate greed, ambition, and lust for power; a slippery slope to confrontations and conflict – in this day and age of weapons of mass destruction.

The argument that the enticement to accumulate unlimited wealth is the logical propellant that inspires and rewards those who create businesses – and therefore jobs – is fatally flawed. There’s a point where wealth is so abundant that it loses its luster. How much wealth do they want or require before their creativity dies? Similarly, shouldn’t scientists, researchers, archaeologists, historians, carpenters and electricians, among others, who perform invaluable specialized services, be guaranteed a minimum income, high enough to support themselves, so they can focus on what they do? Only societies can, should, and must decide.

This is not to suggest that wealth should be summarily and arbitrarily confiscated by a government, as in the defunct Soviet Union. Instead, models other than dictatorial corporations should be considered. One of them is Mondragon Corporation, the world’s largest worker cooperative. Headquartered in the Basque region of Spain, it has numerous subsidiaries in more than 150 countries, including the United States, China, France, Mexico and Brazil.