Towards the end of the book, Korten took us on a hypothetical trip to his future Real Wealth Economy and described it as such: "This seems to be a truly middle-class society. I've found little evidence of more than modest distinctions between the richest and the poorest in terms of income, asset ownership, size of residence, and consumption." In this new world, everyone is middle-class and content with where he/she is. There are no large international firms no more--every business is human-scaled and locally owned. While I agree with his point that we should focus on creating real wealth (labor, land, healthcare, etc.), I believe that he is oversimplifying the complex problems we've got and throwing out a radical and utopian solution.
First of all, Korten demonizes Wall Street and claims that they make the public believe that "there is no alternative". Then, he points out that our current capitalist system brings the worst out of us. He recognizes the greed in human nature yet he blames the system for it. It is unclear how in his proposed new world, all humans will be easily-satisfied and have high moral senses. And that is precisely what is missing from his book--he fails to demonstrate how humans can overcome greed and create a corruption-free world. Frankly, Korten's proposal is practically socialist, and his measure is drastic--a complete destruction of the current system. His advices can be useful for smaller sustainable communities, but I don't see it being implemented on a global/national scale. Nonetheless, his book allows us to see that there are definitely improvements we can make and we should challenge the current system for the better. There can be alternatives.
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