What Would Ghandi Say?

The time is ripe for a return to the sanity of a slower, steady-state economy that celebrates ‘human beings’ rather than ‘human doings’, says Satish Kumar, editor of UK-based Resurgence Magazine and founder of Schumaker College. On a recent visit to Australia, he noted a change in awareness from his visit a decade ago. Rather than a total fixation on short-term economic growth, he was heartened to find that people are more cognizant of the urgency of climate change and of the failure of the West’s social, political and economic systems to deal with conflict, poverty and resource depletion. ”People are ready for some more deep and profound transformation. This is a very encouraging and hopeful sign. Some pessimists say we are at the point of no return, but I say it’s a return to a more sustainable, more joyful, a more elegantly simple lifestyle.” So long as we avoid disempowering attitudes of doom and gloom, this awakening could lead to a new world order that makes the economy subservient to ecology, and no longer the other way around. How we are to realize this, he suggests, is by creating a culture of non-violence toward the earth and toward one’s […]

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