Trade, economy is part of life

Question from the Internet:

“Could society survive without the economy?”

Trade, economy is a part of life. Every living system is built on, survives by the constant trade, exchange of products, energy between its comprising parts, elements.

Especially in the globally integrated, fully interdependent world, we can’t survive without exchanging ideas, resources, products with each other and producing what we need together.

The problem is not with the trade or the economy. The problem is how we use trade and the economy.

Some wise people suggest that our society, our economic relations are simply the external expressions of the relationships between human beings.

And since by default we relate to each other with inherently self-centered, subjective, exploitative intentions — only taking into calculation what we can benefit from others, how we could succeed at the expense of others — our societies, the trade and economy society uses is built in the same way.

Also, since we try to fulfill our insatiable, selfish desires at all costs, present trade and economy are based on constantly increasing, excessive overproduction/overconsumption to fuel the desired, constant quantitative growth — similarly to how cancer grows, spreads.

In order to correct, improve our societies, or economic and trade relations, first, we need to change, upgrade how we relate to each other, with what attitude, intentions we approach each other. We need to learn from Nature how closed, integrated, living systems work and survive, what laws and principles we have to follow in order to build a better, more equal, and sustainable human society and economy.