Maybe capitalism isn’t the best philosophy

E.O. Wilson in Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge:

To suppose that the living standard of the rest of the world can be raised to that of the most prosperous countries, with existing technology and current levels of consumption and waste, is a dream in pursuit of a mathematical impossibility.  Even to level out present-day income inequities would require shrinking the ecological footprints of the prosperous countries.  That is problematic in the market-based global economy, where the main players are also militarily the most powerful, and in spite of a great deal of rhetoric largely indifferent to the suffering of others.