6 quotes
To get a sense of how extreme overconsumption is: if we all were to live like the average citizen of the average high-income country, we would require the ecological capacity equivalent of 3.4 earths.
The Divide: Global Inequality from Conquest to Free Markets (2018)
GDP was intended to be a war-time measure, which is why it is so single-minded – almost even violent. It tallies up all money-based activity, but it doesn't care whether that activity is useful or destructive.
The Divide: Global Inequality from Conquest to Free Markets (2018)
If we dig behind the rhetoric, it becomes clear that Western support for right-wing coups had little to do with Cold War ideology, and certainly nothing to do with promoting democracy (quite the opposite!); the goal, rather, was to defend Western economic interests. The veil of the Cold War has obscured this blunt fact from view.
The Divide: Global Inequality from Conquest to Free Markets (2018)
While global real GDP has nearly tripled since 1980, the number of people living in poverty, below $5 per day, has increased by more than 1.1 billion. Why is this? Because past a certain point, GDP growth begins to produce more negative outcomes than positive ones – more 'illth' than wealth.
The Divide: Global Inequality from Conquest to Free Markets (2018)
The plunder of Latin America left 70 million indigenous people dead in its wake. In India, 30 million died of famine under British rule. Average living standards in India and China, which had been on a par with Britain before the colonial period, collapsed.
The Divide: Global Inequality from Conquest to Free Markets (2018)
Rather than submitting to plans handed down by central governments in distant capitals, people are using direct democracy to make decisions about their resources and environments, seeking regeneration and harmony with their surrounding ecology. In the Middle East, communities in the mountains of northern Iraq and in Rojava in Syria are experimenting with similar ideas.
The Divide: Global Inequality from Conquest to Free Markets (2018)