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The 3 debts

“A man in debt is so far a slave.”  Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our global crisis can be observed easily, it generates 3 types of growing debts which are at some level interconnected: a financial debt, an ecological debt and a social debt. These debts are growing worldwide, and with them grow the need to address them seriously. Unfortunately, the growing debt and its potential consequences does not seem to taken seriously, governments, institutions, corporations, that seem to adopt a “business as usual” approach to the aggravating situation.

Growing financial debt

“At some point, there will be some other financial crisis. It’s in the nature of a capitalist system.” – Lee Hsien Loong

The most visible debt is our growing global financial debt which is reaching over 250 Trillions $, over 300% of the global GDP. Not only this growing financial debt is not viable and will ultimately end up with a financial crisis, but it generates tremendous pressure on all economical actors. Because of this growing debt, governments and businesses are pressured to adopt politics of austerity while putting the whole society under the increasing pressure of the financial markets. Thus the markets are also weakening the ability for innovations that could function in another paradigm to exist and take effect.

The most disturbing part if we dive deeper into it, is that money is purely an artificial value made of computer digits and pieces of paper supposed to be a tool to facilitate the exchange of goods and services, a tool, to which we seem to have become dependent and relatively slaved, because of the way we tweaked it.

In view of this situation of our global increasing global debt, it is very likely that another financial crash will occur in a near future with potentially serious consequences on the whole economy. However, if the financial debt can be managed without creating too much irreversible consequences since the value of money is virtual, it is not the case for our underlying ecological and social debts, which are much more real.

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Growing social debt

“As long as poverty, injustice and gross inequality persist in our world, none of us can truly rest. “ – Nelson Mandela

As if the growing financial and ecological debts were not enough, we also have to deal with a growing social debt. First of all our human population has doubled in less than 50 years, from 3.8 billion to more than 7.6 billion, which has drastically increased our global need for resources and our ecological impact.

Not only the world population has more than doubled, but it has done so while we have observed an increase of global inequalities. In fact, less than 1% of the global population possesses more than 50% of the global wealth while the 70% poorest active have less than 3% of the global wealth which means most of the human population can be considered being in relative poverty. Since the main global strategy is to solve poverty through an already unsustainable consumerist, capitalist, and market driven economy, we can only conclude that we have no long term vision nor viable solution to avoid a crash of our system.

These 3 debts can be seen as related and interconnected, as they are all a result of our greed driven model of society that needs to be transformed. The real problem does not occur when the debt is being built, but when the time to pay it ultimately comes. The more we wait to work to address the situation and, the bigger our debts grow, the more we are heading toward a collapse, the bigger the challenge will be once we will ultimately understand the need to solve them. For this reason it is very important to look at the reality of our unsustainable model of society and address our global issues as soon as possible. This is the only option we have if we want to avoid or limit the effect of the collapse we are heading toward. We need evolution and change.

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Growing ecological debts

“If we pollute the air, water and soil that keep us alive and well, and destroy the biodiversity that allows natural systems to function, no amount of money will save us.” – David Suzuki

There is no need to be a genius to realize that a system of society based on infinite growth on a limited planet cannot be ecologically sustainable, and is therefore irrational and utopian. And this lack of sustainability is made worst by the encouraged competition of all individual and groups for the unlimited accumulation of short term profits and resources. Clearly, we have launched ourselves on an absurd race toward Armageddon.

And this lack of rationality and sustainability is being confirmed when we look at the growing ecological crisis all over the planet materializing with the destruction of our ecosystems. We are increasingly threatened by air, soil and water pollution, deforestation, plastic pollution, the overconsumption of our resources, global warming, and consequently the human created 6th mass extinction. All our ecosystems are being damaged or destroyed, with potentially irreversible effects and dramatic consequences for our future on this planet.

Our contemporary model of society hasn’t been thought taking in consideration the limits of our environment, which are not appearing in the main economic indicators used to drive our policies and strategies. As a result environmental destruction is mainly considered an externality and our system is dangerously disconnected from reality, delusional and utopian in the long term as we are not only depending on our ecosystem for our well-being, but for our survival and the survival of forms of life on this planet.

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