The Economy and Crisis

The current economic system is a creator of crises because it is based on values which, in our current age, run counter to the Plan; and yet we can paradoxically see the plan unfold through the medium of economic system. We can see how the 'evil' force of competition is being turned to good purpose and is being made to subserve the Plan. Love does indeed underlie the happenings of the time. Such is the beauty of the Plan.

While the economic system is still based on outmoded principles and values, we nevertheless do see many seventh ray forms. The UN is leading a number of initiatives such as the UN Global Compact which is "a strategic policy initiative for businesses that are committed to aligning their operations and strategies with ten universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labor, environment and anti-corruption. By doing so, business, as a primary driver of globalization, can help ensure that markets, commerce, technology and finance advance in ways that benefit economies and societies everywhere." In addition to the UN initiatives, there are several NGO initiatives aimed at working with business on sustainable growth. One of these is the Ceres Coalition which "works to promote sustainability by moving companies, policy makers and other market players to incorporate environmental and social factors into their decision-making and to mobilize investor and business leadership to build a thriving, sustainable global economy." Another one is the Ellen MacArthur Foundation which "works in education, business innovation and analysis to accelerate the transition to a circular economy. A circular economy is one that is restorative by design, and which aims to keep products, components and materials at their highest utility and value at all times, distinguishing between technical and biological cycles."

Going one step further than these initiatives is the concept of the B Corporation, which is a corporation which has been certified (by an independent non-profit organization call B Lab) that it meets rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency. A newly certified B corporation often needs a new legal vehicle through wich to conduct its business, and perhaps the best option is the Benefit Corporation, which unlike its traditional corporate sibling, expressly requires its directors to create a positive material impact on both society and environment. This seventh ray initiative has taken a sixth ray form and has modified its legal parameters to embody a more inclusive seventh ray ideal.

All of the above initiatives still work within the bounds of the existing economic system which is based on material growth and the selfish appropriation of profit and interest; the second and third tests of Scorpio concerning the selfish appropriation of life conditions and money, but in a more balanced measure. The reason why fundamental economic change is so difficult is the fact that entire, highly complex, highly integrated world economic plumbing has been laid, and such a global network of activity is not easily changed in an environement where global business dominates, nationalism remains the highest prevailing group identity, and no real global governance exists. As a consequence, while we see an advance in the consciousness of humanity on the mental plane, the turbulent emotional body of humanity coupled with a relatively unadaptable physical body, inhibit the manifestation of new, more inclusive forms of expression, and so the old physical plane ways and methods remain largely unchanged. What will happen? Will this inhibition of Soul energy create such world tension that the nation states will be forced into the realization that cooperation is the only way forward? Or, has the fifth subrace of the fifth root race, the subrace in which the peak of human intellect is to be achieved in this round, created such a monstrous structure that destruction is the only means of escape? In this context, it might be useful to note this quotation from A Treatise on Cosmic Fire: "Out of the shattered form of the fifth subrace of the fifth root race....will emerge the sixth subrace of brotherly love". The phrase "out of the shattered form" suggests that the material world order, the fruit of the fifth subrace, will undergo destruction and perhaps with it much of the fifth subrace itself. Will humanity take its destiny into its own hands and trace a new, truer Path, or will the fifth subrace degenerate within the old, crystallised, economic thought-form? (A Student)