Derrick Jensen, an author, teacher activist and small farmer wrote a book called Endgame, The problem of civilization, Volume 1. It is 451 pages long and pretty dense reading. But in the front of the book he lists 20 premises of our current civilization that pretty much summarize the contents. The premises are shocking and heartbreaking because of their stark truth. Here’s the last one, for which there are several modifications.
Premise Twenty
Within this culture, economics—not community well-being, not morals, not ethics, not justice, not life itself—drives social decisions.
Modification of Premise Twenty: Social decisions are determined primarily (and often exclusively) on the basis of whether these decisions will increase the monetary fortunes of the decision-makers and those they serve.
Re-modification of Premise Twenty: Social decisions are determined primarily (and often exclusively) on the basis of whether these decisions will increase the power of the decision-makers and those they serve.
Re-modification of Premise Twenty: Social decisions are founded primarily (and often exclusively) on the almost entirely unexamined belief that the decision-makers and those they serve are entitled to magnify their power and/or financial fortunes at the expense of those below.
Re-modification of Premise Twenty: If you dig to the heart of it—if there is any heart left—you would find that social decisions are determined primarily on the basis of how well these decisions serve the ends of controlling or destroying wild nature.
You can read the rest of them here.