Radicalism attacks the very root of something, usually an institution in society. When a tree bears bad fruit, the prophetic voices in a society call for it to be cut down or plucked up by the roots.
What has been happening the last few years in western economics seems to me to show that the tree of our economic system needs some radical work done to it. Peoples from other parts of the world have been trying to tell the West for decades that there is something wrong. Maybe it is time to we look seriously at the roots of the system.
Some investment opportunities come with the advisory that one should not invest more than one can afford to lose due to the risk involved in the investment. So the capital is coming from funds that are not essential to one’s existence. The labor, on the other hand, is going to involve the entire life of the worker – at least a third of the day, risk of health and safety, limitations put on where the worker can live, etc. Yet the bottom line is driven by the demand for a return on what one can afford to lose, not on the very life of the worker.
There is a problem that goes to the spiritual core of our beings as individuals and as a society when dignity, self-worth and minimal sustenance can be taken from some so that the one who risked only the surplus can be rewarded.
Are the roots of our society and spirituality in the worth and dignity of every human being or on the accumulation of things?