Hervé Kempf thinks that the current financial crisis may benefit us all. In his book How the Rich are Destroying the Earth the French environmentalist says that too many people have been going into debt trying to emulate a lifestyle they can't afford. Our communities and the environment will benefit by a return to smaller houses, smaller automobiles, less travelling, fewer 'toys'.

Douglas Rushkoff lectures and writes about cultural values and social change. He says that we have surrendered control of our lives to megalomaniac corporations that govern most aspects of our lives They dominate what we think we need, what we count to be important and, of course, what we should buy - most often on credit without much thought about when we can pay for the purchases. He also thinks that the billionaire moguls who manipulate the financial- military-industrial complex, have contributed to the destruction of human community, responsibility and morality. Some are now serving sentences.

Once upon a time, he says, people bought only what they could afford and saved for the rest. There was no 'economy'; there was just life. Now global corporations that must show continuously rising profits have persuaded us that shopping is "retail therapy" for our ills, personal and economic. They must show quarterly gains even at the cost of luring the unwary into debt and falsifying the fundamental values of a just and stable society.

Messrs Kempf and Rushkoff expect that the worldwide economic downturn will drive us back to simpler lifestyles, saving for the future and, like Socrates, being pleased when we are in the shopping malls to see how many of the things on offer we do not need. Perhaps we shall return to being more concerned about the quality of life in our neighbourhoods, towns and villages rather than with what Stephen Leacock dubbed "Arcadian adventures with the idle rich".

That will require a major shift in contemporary attitudes. Perhaps a chief indicator of our current malaise is the fact that so many people feel discontented and exploited in the work they do. As far as the global corporations that dominate, employ and exploit us are concerned, we are expendable and, when necessary, replaceable. Like feudal serfs, thousands work for masters who, when they 'downsize' or 'outsource', expect staffers who survive locally to work extra hours. Like honey bees, they produce a product that enriches masters who leave them just enough to live on. Capitalist orthodoxy sees any expression of discontent or any governmental effort to distribute wealth more evenly as flirtation with Marxism.

It is either unknown or disregarded that modern popes who, more than most, are international spokesmen for economic morality, have long condemned unregulated capitalism as being as subversive of human dignity as is doctrinaire communism. 'Neo-conservatism', as Democratic politicians to the south of us have emphasised, tries to solve our social and economic problems by "more of the same". Paradoxically, millions in the wealthiest nation in the world suffer from the poverty that plagues two-thirds of the world. Canadians and others closely bound to U.S. corporations are warned that any "move to the left" on the part of governments would be disastrous. But do we not need less rather than more of the same?

All who are concerned about the future should have at least a passing acquaintance with the social and economic imperatives dealt with in Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical, Rerum Novarum ("New Things), John XXIII's 1961 Mater et Magister which deals with the widening gap between wealth and poverty worldwide and John Paul II's 1987 Solicitudo Rei Socialis ("Social Concerns"). They may not be infallible prescriptions for change but ignorance of them is inexcusable in the present circumstances.

In a time of creeping neo-conservatism in Canada, perhaps we should review the 1956 Winnipeg Declaration, a modification of the 1933 Depression era Regina Manifesto. It would be a basic document for any unification of "the political left". That is, of course, unless in spite of everything, we want more of the privileged, cynical humour that was exhibited by George W. Bush the other day. He said to his administration's employees, "Some of you are worried about finding a new job and wondering where you will live. I know how you feel". Confound him, he does not know how such people feel.

The difficulty with human nature is that we enjoy the benefits we have and resist the need to change until we are forced to do so by disaster or misfortune. The Great Depression only ended with the full employment necessitated by the 1939-45 War. At the mid- 20th century the Royal Bank of Canada urged us to "be thrifty in '50". In those pre-Visa and Mastercard days Julie London was at the top of the charts, singing "Some like the high road, I like the low road, free from the care and strife. / Sounds corny and seedy but, yes indeedy, give me the simple life". Kampf and Rushkoff suggest that we may all be headed back to the simple life. In Britain, World Horse Welfare reports a 53% rise in unaffordable animals being abandoned by the horsy set. Caledon, beware!

Then there was Dinah Shore's 1950s song that expressed the nostalgia of many rural folk who had gone to urban areas to find work. She sang about "Those dear hearts and gentle people who live in my home town" and said that she would move (back) there some day. She would find now that urban problems have already preceded her into the rolling hills of exurbia.

The late Jane Jacobs asked whether modern cities were built for people or for cars. One might also ask whether we educate our children for citizenship and co-operation or to be aggressive players in an acquisitive consumer society.

Adam Smith, apostle of capitalism and author of The Wealth of Nations (1776), suggested, in fine, that if entrepreneurs are allowed to be as self-serving as they are able to be they will eventually contribute to the greater wealth and welfare of all. He expected capitalism to be underpinned by the basic morality of his native Presbyterian Scotland.

Ay, there's the rub.