Pictures of famine and destitution arouse universal alarm and anger – yet the destruction of the economic self-sufficiency of the afflicted peoples in the name of free trade, open markets and favourable trade balances can count on the wide support of the democratic electorate. The progressive depletion of world resources and associated mortgaging of the life conditions of future generations is unanimously bewailed and protested against – yet politicians promising increased ‘economic growth’, that is a yet larger consumption of non-renewable resorces, can invariably count on electoral success.