Every once in awhile, Tom Friedman gets one right. This is one: “It’s Too Late for Later” [16 December 2007], his posting from the climate conference in Bali. He writes:

[T]oday’s global economy has become like a monster truck with the gas pedal stuck, and we’ve lost the key — so no one can stop it from wiping out more and more of the natural world….

His pessimism — that we cannot stop the madness — would be countered by Paul Krugman’s assertion that “institutions, norms, and the political environment” are capable of driving the economy [The Conscience of a Liberal, p. 8 (2007)], contrary to the neo-con (and Marxist! There’s a startling convergence.) belief that the economy is all that matters and that the market must be untouched by politics.

It seems more and more clear that the concept of an ever-expanding economy — growth as the only imperative — is a form of cancer. Whatever the specific economic issues of global political regimes may be, they link back to that fundamental concept, which is not sustainable. Proposals for renewable energy and equitable taxation point toward a new fundamental principle: sustainability.