The profits were already being enjoyed by the fisherman. The problem is that the profits were rapidly extracted at a rate that the environment could not support. Sucked dry.
Enter stage left: Sustainability.
As someone posted above, the Triple Bottom Line presents a different concept of capitalism that takes into account the limited supply of resources that make profitable life possible. At our current rate of growth, if we do not refocus efforts on sustainable consumption, we will all end up like the fisherman.
Last sentence particularly rings true for me! Where ever there are profits, there is also a deficit elsewhere, this is one of the core problems with our monetary system.
We are brought up not to be greedy and to be generous, then as soon as we enter the real world as adults that need to earn a living, many are forced to make decisions that are not ethical in order to survive/support family etc.
I have been spending a lot of time looking into the Resource Based Economy recently and this model seems far superior to anything we have at the moment, unfortunately, it is so radically different from what we have that it is going to take a lot of educating and a lot of work to start abandoning our current failing system in favour of another. Still, I have a lot of hope for the future, we have everything we need right now to change the world, we just need everyone to be willing and ready to accept this change!
Enter stage left: Sustainability.
As someone posted above, the Triple Bottom Line presents a different concept of capitalism that takes into account the limited supply of resources that make profitable life possible. At our current rate of growth, if we do not refocus efforts on sustainable consumption, we will all end up like the fisherman.