Down to the wire : confronting climate collapse / David - Index of

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38 politics and governance
tools to shift assets to long-term value aligned with ecological
health. But many, in Peter Senge’s words, “fail to summon the
imagination and courage to face the fact that they are selling the
wrong products . . . to the wrong customers” (Senge, 2008, p. 310).
Few will, without strong, imaginative, and farsighted government
leadership of the kind we associate with the founding of the
United States, Lincoln’s response to the secession of the Southern
states, and Franklin Roosevelt’s leadership in the 1930s and during
World War II. Corporations acting in disorganized or unregulated
markets will not act consistently for the public good when it no
longer serves their short-term shareholder interests. To do otherwise
would be fatal to the management of underperforming
companies. The cardinal rule of capitalism is to make money, and
no amount of greenwashing can hide that fact.
A great deal, accordingly, depends on how and how well we
repair and enhance the capacity of government to do what only
governments can do. The market is the arena in which we say “I”
and “mine” and in which we act mostly for near-term advantage.
Government is one in which we come together to say “we” and
“ours,” in order to protect and enhance our common interests
immediately and over the long term. Markets seldom act for the
enduring public good; governments can and must. But a great
deal of our commonwealth, common property, and capacity to
act collectively has been squandered in the past four decades,
diminishing our democratic heritage and reducing our capacity to
respond collectively to the kinds of emergencies that will become
more common in the future. The miserable performance of the
Federal Emergency Management Agency in the wake of Katrina
and more recently the total failure of regulation that culminated
in the bankruptcies of major fi nancial institutions, for example,
were the predictable results of decisions by people who wanted
to get government off their backs. 31 Both cases (as well as others)
starkly revealed a void where we need the capacity for foresight,
competent actions in emergency situations, transparency, and