Not Maximizing Consumer Goods but Maximizing Values
Kim’s Dream Orland Ravanera
We do not want a world driven by unbridled capitalism. We want an egalitarian world, one that places human dignity, social justice, and ecological integrity above profit and power. What humanity needs today is not the endless accumulation of consumer goods, but the conscious cultivation of values that sustain life. Who would have imagined that the slogans shouted by Filipino student activists during the First Quarter Storm of the 1970s, “Ibagsak ang Imperyalismo!” would one day be echoed by ordinary people in the streets of the United States and across the globe? What was once dismissed as radical rhetoric has now become a global cry for justice. History has come full circle, revealing a painful truth: the system we were warned about decades ago has indeed brought humanity to the brink.
Modern-day American imperialism, which controls more than half of the world’s resources and possesses nuclear armaments capable of annihilating humanity many times over, has produced widespread poverty, extreme inequality, and environmental devastation. Its neoliberal development paradigm, advanced through corporate globalization, has sacrificed both people and the planet at the altar of greed and profit. This has made painfully evident what many social scientists and moral thinkers have long warned us about: nuclear war and ecological collapse are no longer distant threats; they are immediate and existential dangers to the survival of homo sapiens.
It is therefore both surprising and deeply telling that since 2011, thousands of people, 7,762 individuals across 122 U.S. cities, have been arrested for participating in people-powered movements resisting this system. These actions were not isolated events, but part of a broader response to decades of class warfare waged by the powerful against the poor. What began in New York soon spread worldwide, igniting a renewed global consciousness.
Dr. Noam Chomsky, widely regarded as one of the most influential intellectuals of our time, observed that one of the greatest achievements of these movements was placing inequality at the center of national and global discourse. He pointed out that inequality in the United States has reached historically unprecedented levels. Nearly two-thirds of the American population have now come to recognize the deep and systemic conflict between the rich and the poor. Millions of ordinary people suffer in poverty, while a so-called “free market” system relentlessly intensifies their misery.
The agenda articulated by these movements is vast and transformative. It calls for nothing less than the moral renewal of society and a fundamental rethinking of the role of powerful nations in the world. Across the United States and beyond, ordinary people continue to organize, resist, and imagine alternatives. Despite arrests, tear gas, imprisonment, and harassment, they persist. They build protest camps, confront centers of power, including Congress and the White House, and proclaim a unified message:
“We want a peaceful world. We want an egalitarian world. We reject war and state capitalism that thrives on destruction. We want a decent society. We oppose imperialism and the rule of the one percent. We reject a system where the super-rich design government policies for their own benefit.”
What is unfolding today is astonishing. The very words once shouted by young activists during the First Quarter Storm, “Ibagsak ang Imperialismo, Piyudalismo at Byurukratang Kapitalismo,” are now resonating worldwide. Many of those brave voices have since been silenced by imprisonment, repression, or death. Yet, if they were alive today, they would recognize the truth in the saying: “Sa kadiliman ng gabi, may naglalamay sa pagdating ng bagong umaga.” In the darkest hours, seeds of dawn are quietly taking root.
I am reminded of individuals who embodied this struggle. The late Secretary Chito Gascon, former Chair of the Commission on Human Rights, was a student leader, human rights advocate, and delegate to the 1987 Constitutional Convention. He was a dear friend who stayed in our home whenever he visited Cagayan de Oro. I also remember the late Roberto Rosales, whose life overflowed with love for the poor and oppressed Indigenous Peoples. And of course, the late Senator Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel Jr., the Father of the Philippine Cooperative Movement, whom I often encountered during human barricades against logging in the 1990s.
I vividly recall asking him one early morning, as he arrived at 3 a.m. to stand with us, “Mr. Senator, why are you here?” He smiled and replied, “Gusto kong tingnan kung buhay pa kayo.” He understood, from personal experience as a political prisoner during Martial Law, the cost of social transformation. It was through his vision that the 1987 Constitution affirmed cooperatives as instruments of social justice, equity, and economic development. He knew that capitalism produces extreme poverty and injustice and that cooperativism remains one of the strongest countervailing forces.
Today, this legacy has become part of our nation’s moral contribution to the world. The rule of the one percent must end. Modern imperialism has driven humanity toward what scientists describe as the sixth mass extinction. At this critical juncture, we must recognize that there are two kinds of intellectuals in the world: those who use their knowledge to liberate the oppressed, and those who use it to accumulate wealth, prestige, and power. The former are often ridiculed, isolated, imprisoned, or killed; the latter are celebrated and rewarded.
In our country, defending the poor, opposing land grabbing, resisting illegal logging and mining, and protecting Indigenous Peoples often invites violence and persecution. Since 2016, more than a hundred individuals have been killed for standing for truth and justice, with almost no accountability. Thousands of Indigenous families, like the Manobo Pulangiyon Tribe, continue to live in extreme poverty after their ancestral lands were seized by powerful corporations. Their cries, “Maawa po kayo, gutom na po kami, lalo na ang aming mga anak,” were met not with compassion, but with bullets. These realities expose a global system where multinational corporations have become the true “masters of mankind,” shaping government policies and profiting from war, displacement, and environmental destruction. Even institutions meant to uphold spirituality and moral leadership are not immune to this corruption, as profit increasingly overrides ethical responsibility.
What is urgently needed now is a profound shift in human consciousness, a transformation of our values and way of living. If humanity continues to measure success by purchasing power and material accumulation, ego-driven consumerism will lead us to collective ruin. But if we choose instead to maximize values of compassion, solidarity, justice, humility, and reverence for life, we can still create a future worth living. The message reverberating across nations today is clear and uncompromising:
A different world is not only possible; it is necessary. A way of life rooted not in consumption, but in conscience. Not in profit, but in people. Not in domination, but in shared humanity and respect for the Earth. Only by choosing values over excess can humanity hope to survive and truly live. For God’s greater glory!
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