Change the Story, Change the Future: A Living Economy for a Living Earth

We humans live by stories, says David Korten, and the stories that now govern our society set us on a path to certain self-destruction. In this profound new book, Korten shares the results of his search for a story that reflects the fullness of human knowledge and understanding and provides a guide to action adequate to the needs of our time.

Korten calls our current story Sacred Money and Markets. Money, it tells us, is the measure of all worth and the source of all happiness. Earth is simply a source of raw materials. Inequality and environmental destruction are unfortunate but unavoidable. Although many recognize that this story promotes bad ethics, bad science, and bad economics, it will remain our guiding story until replaced by one that aligns with our deepest understanding of the universe and our relationship to it.

To guide our path to a viable human future, Korten offers a Sacred Life and Living Earth story grounded in a cosmology that affirms we are living beings born of a living Earth itself born of a living universe. Our health and well-being depend on an economy that works in partnership with the processes by which Earth’s community of life maintains the conditions of its own existence—and ours. Offering a hopeful vision, Korten lays out the transformative impact adopting this story will have on every aspect of human life and society.

David C. Korten is cofounder and board chair of YES! Magazine, cochair of the New Economy Working Group, president of the Living Economies Forum, a member of the Club of Rome, a former Harvard Business School professor, and author of the international bestsellers When Corporations Rule the World and The Great Turning.

Prologue: In Search of a Deeper Truth
Chapter 1. Our Story Problem
Chapter 2. Our Quest to Know
Chapter 3. A Brief History of Story Politics
Chapter 4. Living Universe
Chapter 5. Children of a Living Earth
Chapter 6. Making a Living
Chapter 7. Enslaved by Corporate Robots
Chapter 8. Economics for a Living Household
Chapter 9. A Living Economy for a Living Earth
Chapter 10. Own the Story, Own the Future