A Platform for Change

The greatest pressure on the earth’s resources is not from large numbers of poor people but from a small number of the world’s ever-consuming elite. The world’s ever-consuming elite are producing money that produces ever more money, which the large numbers of poor people will never benefit from within the current ‘free’ market paradigm.

Over-consumption is apparently easy for people to signal as an environmental problem, but for the majority it remains extremely difficult to consequently act accordingly. It is confronting to realize that the only way to make a true difference in the world is if we change our own behaviour, for this has consequences for the environment as well as the poor and oppressed populations worldwide. Actions are often only undertaken if there is an economic gain or possibility. This is typical of the economic analysis, using the cost/benefit relationship, wherein social and environmental consequences are not considered.

The processes of exploitation, exclusion and marginalization are well-known phenomena of the world capitalist system today, yet powerful players at the top, which are benefiting from this system, are not prepared to part with any of their wealth in order to redistribute it among the poor. Providing opportunities to those people they are exploiting would decrease their power, and diminish their comfortable positions. Such opportunities could be achieved by moving towards an emancipatory discourse for the poor, which would contribute to breaking ‘the culture of silence’. This includes the silence of the academic community towards the poor. The poor, oppressed and marginalized demand a central role in academic discussion, as important actors in our world economy, but most of all to give them a platform so that they are no longer silenced and invisible, but rather to create the potential for change.