Dear Tessa,

Thanks for sharing your vision, which touches crucial issues in this critical historic phase.

I am a baby-boomer born in the Netherlands in 1951 and I worked in 60 countries. You forget that a new legal and ethical global framework has been put in place in 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The problem is, we still don't have a human-rights based economic system. The neo-liberal economic system is an anachronism deeply rooted in the old nationalistic, colonial, competitive, unequal system in which people and planet are commodified, and only transactional relations count. In this system we are framed as consumers and workers in hierarchical systems where power is in hands of those who manage the buttons of the money flows. All the rest is taken for granted, marginalised and exploited, such as human relations, unpaid care work, nature, and the entire basic socioeconomic system of caring economics.

History has shown that the authoritarian education at home and in school in Germany, was one of the reasons why the German population blindly followed Adolf Hitler in the 1930' and '40s, leading to World War II and the murder of millions innocent people in concentration camps. Post-war, the Nazis who were involved in this genocide justified their behavior with 'Befehl ist Befehl' (Command is Command).

That the authoritarian education system in pre-war Germany was one of the main reasons for the atrocities commited by the Nazis during World War II, has been underpinned by many scientific analysis, especially from the Frankfurter Schule (Erich Fromm, Adorno, and others). Of course, there were also economic reasons, such as the marginalisation and lack of perspectives of the lower middle class and petty bourgoisie.

The post-war generation in Europe was very engaged in finding ways to avoid that their children act on command. They tried to pave the path so that they themselves and future generations would never again uncritically follow a dictator. Especially the student movement and feminist organisations in the 1960s and 70s were in search for education methods that would lead to peace, freedom, and to shaping critical citizens, who would never violate human rights because of an order to do so. This led to anti-authoritarian education methods, and indeed a break with the ancient old patriarchal cultures and religious ideologies that have justified cruelties to keep people under control. (I would not call them the 'Spock Generation', at least not in Europe).

Humanity still suffers from the collective traumas and wounds caused by these ancient rules and cruelties, including the witch wound, the traumas of the transatlantic slavery, the traumas of genocide and colonialisation, the trauma of the holocaust, and the new trauma that started 75 years ago for the Palestinina population.

It's time for a transformation of society, and for healing from these deeply rooted collective traumas. This should be accompanied by a new economic system that is human-rights based, inclusive and that cares for people and the planet.

Fortunately there is an increasing number of people working on this new future inclusive economic system that cares for people and the planet, both in theory and praxis. I hope in my life-time I will experience the benefits of the new perspectives that humanity will obtain through such a transformation towards caring economics at a global scale.

Thera van Osch