I like to live my life so that my loved ones give me the things I need as gifts and I give them the things they need. Frankly a society built around consumerism is hell
I think the American people should see that the corporations abandoned them long ago. That people will have to build their own economies and rebuild democracy as a living democracy. The corporations belong to no land, no country, no people. They have no loyalty to anything apart from the base-line - their profits. And the profits today are on an unimaginable scale; it has become illegitimate, criminal profit - profits extracted at the cost of life.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Corporations prioritize profits over people's needs and loyalty, urging individuals to take charge of their economic and democratic futures.
In this quote, Vandana Shiva highlights the disconnect between large corporations and the communities they operate in. She argues that these entities have forsaken their commitments to the people and the environment, primarily seeking profits without regard for the consequences of their actions. Shiva calls for individuals to reclaim their economic power and actively participate in the democratic process to create a system that genuinely serves their needs.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
A speaker at a rally addressing the need for community-driven economic initiatives.
More from Vandana Shiva
All quotes βIn nature's economy the currency is not money, it is life.
Cultivating and conserving diversity is no luxury in our times: it is a survival imperative.
We are either going to have a future where women lead the way to make peace with the Earth or we are not going to have a human future at all.
We've moved from wisdom to knowledge, and now we're moving from knowledge to information, and that information is so partial β that we're creating incomplete human beings.
Earth Democracy connects people in circles of care, cooperation, and compassion instead of dividing them through competition and conflict, fear and hatred.
Similar quotes
We judge people in areas where we're vulnerable to shame, especially picking folks who are doing worse than we're doing.
The fact that we're all here in these bodies means that we're not perfected.
I think that there are real concerns that we have around whose life is important and why. So if the official story is, for example, somebody was running from the police, does their life matter?
At the present moment, the security of coherent philosophy, which existed from Parmenides to Hegel, is lost.
The Great Man... is colder, harder, less hesitating, and without fear of 'opinion'; he lacks the virtues that accompany respect and 'respectability,' and altogether everything that is the 'virtue of the herd.' If he cannot lead, he goes alone... He knows he is incommunicable: he finds it tasteless to be familiar... When not speaking to himself, he wears a mask. There is a solitude within him that is inaccessible to praise or blame.
In a dream I walked with God through the deep places of creation; past walls that receded and gates that opened through hall after hall of silence, darkness and refreshment--the dwelling place of souls acquainted with light and warmth--until, around me, was an infinity into which we all flowed together and lived anew, like the rings made by raindrops falling upon wide expanses of calm dark waters.