Keith has written a very thoughtful and interesting piece on the nature of global economy, the future, money, and how it affects us all. I encourage you all to go check it out. (via The Earth Blog)

…Some companies and governments with poor ethical reputations can be made to suffer, and there can be a feedback effect whereby a withdrawal of investment will weaken the value of this investment overall, thus causing other funds to pull out of “bad” investments. The opposite can be true for positive investment in ethical companies.

All of this looks like good stuff. We can, as individuals, really change the system. But, of course, this is nonsense.

Individuals have very little influence over companies and governments and, in reality, very few people actually care where their money goes. Because the market economy is based on growth, anyone who does not want the value of their money to fall in relation to the world market, and thus not be able to afford what they need, has to invest in a growing market themselves. If the less damaging company or government is not growing much, essentially because they are consuming less resources, then who would want to invest in them? Not the general public, and certainly not the average growth-conscious fund manager…