A World without Integrity - It can't go on!

“Profit from Food Price Rises

Food prices are soaring. How can investors get a piece of the action.”

Whilst this sentiment from this headline reflects the basics of Free Market Capitalism, the latter of which I hasten to say that I agree with up to a point, it also highlights a serious flaw, and what a previous UK Prime Minister referred to as “The unacceptable face of Capitalism”

 We have taken the financial tool of “supply and demand” and converted it into a weapon of abuse, encouraging people to enter a rising market for gain, thus further fuelling price rises which will assist in increasing the numbers of people dying from starvation.

 Following a traditional free market discipline in this manner is resulting in either the murder or manslaughter of the worlds poor on a vast and increasing scale – I leave you to decide the intricacies of whether the abuse in this case is premeditated or not.

 As a civilisation we seem to have got really good at abuse. You name it we abuse it – Corporate Profits, Politics, Religion, the Planet, each other – and the more we abuse the more chaotic and stressful our lives become as moral integrity evaporates in a sea of self satisfying excess.

 The scale of the problem is most dramatically evidenced by its effect upon the natural world, which is now being driven to make adjustments to try and compensate for what we are doing. But these powerful reactions are lost on us because of the blind obsession with which we strive to satisfy our demands for more and more.

 Climate change is calmly discounted by those who have the most to lose – the most powerful – and they too are blind in their belief that they can manage and control those forces that will eventually wrest back this planet and restore the balance of natural order that has prevailed for millennia.

 Inherent within integrity is “balance”, the key to managing abuse and excess that seems little understood or respected today. Balance is like taking a bath; excessive hot or cold water makes the process unpleasant at best and untenable at worst – with the correct mixture comes stability, comfort and order.

 As we have travelled through the latter part of the 20th century and into the new millennium we have increasingly come out of balance as a civilisation, as our moral integrity is continuously eroded through our demands for material satisfaction.

 Like children let loose in a sweetshop we have gorged upon all of the goodies we can lay our hands on but, like the sugar rush from candy, the satisfaction is short lived and so we enter another orgy of overindulgence.

 In an environment where personal gratification increasingly rules, addiction takes over as the need for satisfaction overrides rational thought and responsible decision making, leading to abuse. We are no longer concerned when our own money has gone because we can easily get more from elsewhere in our struggle for happiness.

 And it is here that the seeds of our self destruction lie, because human addiction is also prevalent on the other side of the fence – that which provides the means for us to continue buying more sweets.

 Retail “therapy” pales into insignificance as a fix when compared to “making profits” in the new global market place, where millions of pounds, dollars or yen can be made in less time that it takes us to buy a pair of shoes - with competition adding further fuel to our compulsions.

 Whether it is a “better” car/holiday/television than our neighbours or personal recognition as the “best trader” in the room/city/market, that competitive instinct drives us to take greater and greater risks, which are accompanied by continuous and dangerous levels of personal stress.

 With the passing of time the natural order comes into play because this unregulated system can no longer cope with the excess that it is being subjected to, and the whole infrastructure collapses - be it the human body abused by the heroin addict or human enterprise abused by manipulation for profit.

 A famous “Counsellor to the Stars” recounted in his early life as an addict that his behaviour had become so irrational that it was not until he awoke one morning in the gutter with a dog urinating on his head that he realised he might have a problem. He had reached the bottom of the pit of self abuse, admitted it to himself and mounted a personal recovery that has made him a more accomplished person now than he could ever have dreamed possible.

 I would suggest that in 2008 that dog is now urinating on all our heads, if the headline at the top of this article is anything to go by. The time has come to bite the bullet and seek the means with which to climb out of the desperate situation we now find ourselves in.

To do that we have to recognise and admit to aspects of what we do that are both unpalatable and not working for our common good. No one sector, race, clan or creed is solely responsible for the abuse we inflict upon each other. It is what we are doing collectively that is leading us to the gutter, and it is therefore our collective responsibility to remedy the situation – if we want to.

 The desire for power and profit fuels most human abuse, and like any other of our powerful human driving forces, requires proper management. Integrity is the “glue” that holds society together and manages the moral code by which we operate and interact.

It cannot be set out as a book of rules – we have tried this with “political correctness” as a substitute for love and caring and it has failed abysmally. Integrity is something that guides us instinctively in determining what is “right” and “wrong” and comes from and understanding of how we need to act “for the common good”.

This instinct is nurtured by our spiritual beliefs and this nourishment has traditionally come from our religions. However it is becoming more evident that there are limitations in the support that can be offered by these institutions, which remain unchanged in a world that has, in comparison, moved on in evolutionary terms by huge leaps and bounds.

 In the last fifty years alone we have seen advances in medical and technological research and understanding that would have left our parents dumbstruck – organ transplants, the microwave and space travel for example. In contrast the church remains entrenched in rituals and dogma that bear little application to the world we now find ourselves in, and paradoxically can sometimes contribute to the abuse by trying to hold back our continued development.

 Over this same period the reduction in the credibility and influence of the traditional church has been mirrored in the reduction in moral standards and integrity that has contributed to our present crisis as a species.

 If we are to break this stranglehold of self abusive materialism we need a radical overhaul of all aspects of our spirituality, in an endeavour to heal the gaping hole that is currently our spiritual need. New perspectives on old wisdoms are necessary to communicate effectively and reintroduce guidance and support on how we get on together.

 It is also becoming clear that whilst trade is an important human activity that has contributed immensely to our development as a species, its financial disciplines are not conducive to feeding us, providing healthcare to all who need it, or indeed any other social functions of a society that needs to live in balance with the natural world.

 In an arena where profit rules, Free Markets have long been a source of human abuse (as well as human achievement) because of their inability to manage and control excessive behaviour, with sometimes devastating repercussions that can directly affect all of us – as the “credit crunch” is now demonstrating.

 What is required is a greater understanding of each other and the world in which we live, and Globalisation, coupled with modern communications may well provide the solution.

 For the first time in our history we can now more clearly see that how we feed one part of the world can starve the other, as we witness the effects of our own actions being played out upon the global stage.

 This new openness must bring greater integrity in our dealings with each other, as we are forced to become more accountable for actions that can no longer be concealed by boundaries of nation, class and creed.

 Integrity cannot continue to be suppressed in this new and fast changing environment. Indeed we need new leadership that understands this, and in so doing also understand how we operate as a species. Only within an environment of confidence and trust can we reduce materialism to just a part of our lives, and not an all consuming passion that is now destroying us.

 Inherent within all problems are opportunities and the present crisis in no different. Our growing understanding of each other, brought about through the destruction of traditional barriers, offers the opportunity to dramatically reduce the widespread abuse that we have endured for millennia as warring factions, taking us all to a more intimate level of relationship that the new environment of a Global “Village” will demand.