Economy – We need a revolution of our value system

Opinion

The reports of the distortions in our system seem to rain down on us at ever shorter intervals.

The problems are so great that it has become simpler to ask what is even going right any more. Many people feel to have reached a dead end we can no longer escape with conventional methods.

Martin Luther King said:

For many years I have been working on the idea of reforming existing social institutions. Some change here, a bit of progress there. But now I have come to another conviction: I believe one has to restructur society as a whole. We need a revolution of our value system.

I have come to share that opinion.

Without a revolution, and by no means do I suggest a violent one (!), no fundamental change in our established structures is possible any more. This kind of revolution must be a spiritual, a cultural, a philosophical and not least, one of our values, as M.L.King eloquently put it in the 1960s.

One reflection of our inner situation is our so-called economy. Let us take a closer look at this concept. The explanation of the term is surprisingly simple, contrary to the general conception:

Economy is the totality of all institutions and actions that serve the planned satisfaction of needs.

(Wikipedia)

The Greek term economy, literally translated, means: Oikos the house and nomos the law. In German, at any rate, the older term for economy was “Hauswirtschaft”, meaning “household”- hence all that is needed to keep a “household running”.

Translation from German: Serena Nebo

Credits

Image	Title	Author	License
	R1_RealRevolution	LatheeshMahe	CC BY-SA 4.0