“The explosion of the rig was a disaster that resulted from BP’s culture of privileging profit over prudence,” said US federal assistant attorney general Lanny A. Breuer at a recent press conference. He was announcing that the company had agreed to pay $4.5 billion to settle criminal charges from the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.The author argues the obvious (to you and me) that this theme, “culture of privileging profit”, is an integral part of capitalism, a system designed by, and for, the world's One Percents.
in the time remaining, to help us understand how the man-made system of capitalism will lead to the extinction of our human species, and so many others.
We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up