I think as a society we need to get away from the idea of “Growth” being the most important factor in economics. One of the questions considered for the indigenous educational goals section of Module 2 were the differences between Eurocentric and Aboriginal approaches to education. During my investigation, I kept coming back to the root motivations behind the two systems, growth and sustainability. While Eurocentric education focuses on the accumulation of knowledge (associate, undergraduate, masters, PhD degrees etc.),  and a need for more in order  to be successful (letter grades and standardized tests), Aboriginal education focuses on the retention and examination of existing education. Eurocentric education values the information itself, whereas aboriginal focused education values  the knowledge and the person who retains it. So with growth defining the origins of our understanding of how to learn any subject, is it really surprising that the idea is so entrenched in our understanding of Economics?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONXpaBQnBvE

The need for growth creates a system where greed is an acceptable and often desirable trait which is unfortunately in direct contrast with how a healthy society functions. If instead we focused on sustainable business structures where people and employees are valued involved it’s possible that we might have a system that doesn’t rely on exploitation to be successful.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2013/04/17/walmart-pays-workers-poorly-and-sinks-while-costco-pays-workers-well-and-sails-proof-that-you-get-what-you-pay-for/

I worked at Costco for most of my college career and was always impressed at how seriously everyone took their job there. People worked harder than most of the other places that I had previously worked and were happy to do so. Although this is admittedly not the best example because Costco, like most successful companies in the capitalist world function on a growth model when I worked there people appreciated that they were valued and I’d like to believe that it’s a step in the right direction.

The following is an article about the ethics behind the Enron debacle:

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A%3A1024194519384#page-1

The following is an article about how one would go about changing a destructive business culture from within the company:

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A%3A1006093713658#page-1