So What Is True Wealth And What Is The Essential Currency We Depend Upon?

Priceless: Romance Valley rainbow.

“The fact that we price the commons with currency shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what real wealth s and how it is generated.

“How, for example, do you price the consequences of having no breathable air, no drinkable water, or highly acidified oceans? What monetary value do you place on the last coral reef, the last breath of fresh air, the last pollinator, or the last stretch of rainforest? To cut to the quick, how do you price the value of the climate we evolved in — the precondition for all the prerequisites of life — the one we are in the process of destroying?

“The answer is, of course, you can’t price these things and probably shouldn’t. Denominating things that are both necessary to support life and irreplaceable, or in limited supply with currency is like trying to convert a stack of dollar bills into air, water, natural resources, species, habitats, or a livable climate. It doesn’t matter how big the stack of cash is, in won’t work.”

– John Atcheson, WTF, America?: How The US Went Off The Rails And How To Get t Back On Track (2017), p. 151.

(Commoner Call photo by Mark L. Taylor, 2017. Open source and free to use with link to www.thecommonercall.org )