Change the Story, Change the Future: A Living Economy for a Living Earth

Author +
David C. Korten

Year: 2015

Our current story is about Sacred Money and Markets. Money, it tells us, is the measure of all worth and the source of all happiness. The market is omniscient. Earth is simply a source of raw materials. Inequality and environmental destruction are unfortunate but unavoidable. Although many recognize this story promotes bad ethics, bad science, and bad economics, it will remain our guiding story until replaced by a more compelling story that aligns with our deepest understanding of the universe and our relationship to it.

A Sacred Life and Living Earth story is grounded in a cosmology that affirms we are living beings born of a living Earth itself born of a living universe. Our health and well-being depend on an economy that works in co-productive partnership with the processes by which Earth’s community of life maintains the conditions of its own existence—and ours. Offering a hopeful vision, this book lays out the transformative impact adopting this story will have on every aspect of human life and society.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Prologue: In Search of a Deeper Truth
Chapter 1: Our Story Problem
Chapter 2: Our Quest to Know
Chapter 3: A Brief History of Story Politics
Chapter 4: Living Universe
Chapter 5: Children of a Living Earth
Chapter 6: Making a Living
Chapter 7: Enslaved by Corporate Robots
Chapter 8: Economics for a Living Household
Chapter 9: A Living Economy for a Living Earth
Chapter 10: Own the Story, Own the Future