Monday, March 16, 2009

Archbishop Desmond Tutu: Macho pursuit of success triggered economic meltdown


The former head of the Anglican church in South Africa, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his opposition to apartheid, claimed companies had done "extraordinary things" to please shareholders and avoid failure.

But he said this was a distortion of what God wanted for the world, and that eventually good people will triumph and "the truth will out".

Archbishop Tutu pointed out that dictators and tyrants "bite the dust quite ignominiously" ultimately, and that the people who are most admired worldwide are those who strive for peace and justice.

In a rare appearance in Britain, the 77-year-old told a meeting of the British Council: "You want to think, too, about what is currently happening with the so -called 'economic meltdown', discovering that so many were flying very close to the wind, because you know different.

"On the whole I think we have distorted what God would want to see happen in God's world.
"With this meltdown, we have exalted the principle of success – success at any cost – for the worst thing to happen to any human being in our culture is to fail.

"And so, people have done extraordinary things in order for their bottom line, to please their shareholders, and we have lent in this morass, where the Law of the Jungle has seemed to prevail: survival of the fittest, and the devil takes the hindmost.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/4699284/Archbishop-Desmond-Tutu-Macho-pursuit-of-success-triggered-economic-meltdown.html

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