The goals of development are always and everywhere stated in terms of consumer value packages standardized around the North Atlantic-and therefore always and everywhere imply more privileges for a few... Underdevelopment is the result of a state of mind common to both socialist and capitalist countries. Present development goals are neither desirable nor reasonable. Unfortunately antiimperialism is no antidote.

Even if nonpolluting power were feasible and abundant, the use of energy on a massive scale acts on society like a drug that is physically harmless but psychically enslaving. A community can choose between Methadone and "cold turkey"-between maintaining its addiction to alien energy and kicking it in painful cramps-but no society can have a population that is hooked on progressively larger numbers of energy slaves and whose members are also autonomously active.

The household became the place where the consumption of wages takes place.

The knowledge of the individual citizen is of less value than the knowledge of science. The former is the opinion of individuals. It is merely subjective and is excluded from policies. The latter is objective - defined by science and promulgated by expert spokesmen. This objective knowledge is viewed as a commodity which can be refined... and fed into a process, now called decision-making. This new mythology of governance by the manipulation of knowledge-stock inevitably erodes reliance on government by people.

The re-establishment of an ecological balance depends on the ability of society to counteract the progressive materialization of values. The ecological balance cannot be re-established unless we recognize again that only persons have ends and only persons can work towards them.

The compulsion to do good is an innate American trait. Only North Americans seem to believe that they always should, may, and actually can choose somebody with whom to share their blessings. Ultimately this attitude leads to bombing people into the acceptance of gifts.

If you want to change society then you must tell an alternative story.