Our present civilization rests on an economic structure that is fundamentally unsound. There is more food, money, and goods today than there has ever been in history, yet poverty is far from being eliminated. Although the world's population is large, it is not so large that people need to go hungry or forego basic health care, basic education, etc. With famine, for example, the problem has been the politics of food distribution, not a scarcity of food. Today we have a strange situation in which a tiny fraction of the world's population owns and controls almost everything material, while the majority of people have to struggle and split the small remainder that is left. That there is something fundamentally wrong with our economic model can also be seen from the following bewildering fact: Even though machines and computers save a huge amount of time and money, people today are nevertheless working longer hours per day on average than before the industrial revolution--before the invention of machines.[1] It is truly ironic: we have machines that can do the work of a thousand individuals, yet people are working more today than before machines were invented! To make matters even worse, especially in the ``developed'' world, millions of people are unemployed while at the same time those in paid work are working longer hours! How can this be? The industrial system appears to have failed in the task of sharing the available work--and leisure time for family life and community service--equitably.
Our present economic model relies on consumption to stimulate demand for goods, services, etc., thereby leading to the creation of employment opportunities. This is a self-perpetuating system, and as such, will likely not collapse like some communist economies did. However, this economic system is fundamentally amoral, i.e., ``you get out what you put in'' as far as values and principles are concerned. The system merely reflects our values. While this is not a bad thing in itself, it means that there is no objective, predetermined way to assign value to goods, services, etc. Prices are set based on the values that people assign to them--ultimately, by the values and principles people uphold and cherish. Currently, our values glorify material pursuits above all else, hence we are living in an age of inverted priorities, in which people sometimes even outbid each other to pay more money to harm themselves and others (with ``recreational'' drugs, for example). Money prevails over principle. Fortunately, this sad state of affairs is slowly changing, partially because today's economy is generating sorrow and discontent on a massive, ``planetary'' scale. Since happiness and contentment are not material objects, therefore they have no associated material price. Hence, the current global economy effectively ignores them altogether, trampling over whatever it cannot set a price on--the environment, people's wellbeing, and ethics, for example. The end result? Neither the rich nor the poor are really happy. Ultimately, our economic problems stem from a crisis of values and principles, therefore their solution must reside outside our current value system. Essentially, we need spiritual solutions for economic problems. This idea can be found in the writing of both Gandhi and of the Bahá'í Faith.