Yesterday, I read Al Gore’s Manifesto for Sustainable Capitalism (pdf), and made a few comments. After reflecting a day, I have a more sweeping response: Gore’s focus — and that of his co-author, David Blood — is far too focused on the corporate boardroom, the compensation of CEOs, and the way… ‘Sustainable Capitalism’ is a term dreamed up by enlightened and benign members of the 1%: an admonition by the members of the elite to the elite, saying in effect that they should to play more fairly. But it’s not broadly based enough for the 99%, who demand a system rooted in justice, not just a suggestion that the overloads agree to crush us a bit less. What we need is ‘slow capitalism’. A system that rewards all for their work and investments, but which is founded on the full accounting of costs in the world. Businesses cannot be allowed to make a huge profit by moving operations to an unregulated corner of the world where there are no environmental regulations, and spewing poisons into the air and ocean. Investors cannot be allowed to make money on pointless financial transactions that add no value, but simply bleed money from a broken system. And the time horizon of our considerations must be reckoned in decades, not in quarters or microseconds.