The New Economy Challenge: Implications for Higher Education
Think of this as our final examination to determine whether we
are a species worthy of survival. If there is to be a human
future, we must reinvent ourselves and our institutions—and do
so with all possible speed. This is the challenge with which our
educational institutions must now engage. We need a new vision
for the human future that goes far beyond current policy
proposals for adjustments in technology and market incentives.
The values and institutions of the 20th century that led us to
recklessly squander Earth’s abundance for the benefit of the few
were shaped by an economic mindset that reduces all values to
financial values and all human exchanges to financial
transactions for private financial gain. This mindset gave us
collapsing environmental systems, unconscionable inequality, and
rule by global corporations that operate beyond the reach of
democratic accountability. Ecological Principles for the New
Economy The economic systems and ins