Spirituality is the enemy of the capital-centered economy. Where materialism has advanced, spirituality has declined. And where spirituality is high the capital-centered economy has had difficulty gaining a foothold. Materialism becomes the living culture, money-making the religion, money the god, banks the temples, and economists the oracles. Any God before this god, any Religion before this religion, any Culture before this culture, and any Spirit before this spirit is the enemy.
Spirituality is anathema to materialism.
In a perverse inversion of reality, to modern materialists spirituality becomes the evil enemy to be destroyed. Thus framed, the modern economy calls on us to engage ourselves in a negative spiritual practice that deprives our lives of meaning and alienates us from our sense of spiritual connection. This gives great significance to the efforts of communities all over the world that are struggling to restore ethics to their economic practice, to become critically aware and socially responsible for the ways in which they organize, use, consume, and manage their resources. They are advancing the practice of voluntary simplicity, creating livelihoods for the unemployed, adopting alternative ways of producing and distributing goods and services to reduce resource use, recycling waste into reusable resources, undertaking sustainable agricultural practices, and providing credit for the poor. The courageous visionaries, social activists, community leaders, and concerned individuals engaged in this historic process are demonstrating the possibility of creating economic cultures in which our economic lives become a part of our ethical and spiritual practice.