PROFESSOR ATUL K. SHAH www.atulkshah.co.uk
Globally renowned expert advisor and broadcaster on culture, accounting, finance, business ethics, holistic education and leadership
World leaders meeting in Glasgow this week are focused on a technological fix, when what is really needed is a cultural and ideological shift. They have announced today that rainforest destruction will be curbed in the future. What about the cultural rain forests that we have in society, which are routinely destroyed or damaged by contemporary economics?
In this global interview for VM I share this thinking with Judy leader of the Black Environment Network and demonstrate how the most powerful of social sciences, Economics, is deeply flawed and a core part of the problem. In contrast I discuss the wisdom of Dharma philosophy, which has long shown that nature is not other, but us as Gandhi said – Sarvodaya – all living beings need to be protected by the human species. The time has come for experts to put down their secular arrogance and learn from wisdom that has stood the test of time. Watch and learn from the proposed solutions.
My Routledge book on Jainism and Ethical Finance, with Dr Aidan Rankin explains how the wisdom of Jain science is a unique resource for our time – it provides a different approach to sustainable finance which is not just philosophically, but practically lived by many people all over the world.
Deep culture offers us hope for a sustainable finance which draws from thousands of years of human experience of living in harmony with nature. We need not seek for new solutions which are often partial and technical, instead of whole and time-tested.