economic integrity

Hi, friends.  I'm sorry I've been away for so long.  Words were not coming to me for a while.  I was doing some temporary work & glad to be working.  I wasn't a census counter.  I work as a chaplain in hospitals and I've been trying to get a "big picture" view of the economic information I'm hearing on the news.  Basically, what I hear is a vicious cycle of businesses of all sizes depending on consumers to buy so they can employ more people and consumers unable to buy much because they're out of work and have little or no money to spend.  I'm wondering if this free enterprise economic cycle has got our vision locked in on the wrong or at least unhelpful values?  The term I hear used to capture the value in this system is "strong economy".  This value doesn't seem to share the with values that have been lifted in the past such as workers, creativity, service, or a new one that I name as economic integrity.  For me economic integrity places the economic system employed by a nation into a larger context with values and goals built on enhancing human and environmental sustainability not wealth sustainability.  We have labored under the impression that if the wealth of a nation is sustained the human rights, health, economic success and environmental health will be sustained also.  This was the dream promoted by the industrialists of the early 1900's such as Henry Ford.  I don't believe that this way of thinking about our economics will work for our post-industrial world where industry can no longer be viewed as the all-knowing god it once was.  I don't think BP really does have the answers for stopping and cleaning up the oil spill.  I don't think any human organization that has looked at the ocean and natural resources as a mean to service our economic purposes and the growth of wealth can have the wherewith all to "contain" oil from far beneath the ocean floor.  We do not see ourselves as part of the natural whole so how can we see ourselves as part of the solution?

Thoughts are welcome.