At the level of Paradigm & Myth, a fundamental difference between 'Taker' (us western, 'developed') & 'Leaver' (native peoples who live in a sustainable way) Societies in that the concept of 'owning land' (& therefore being able to buy, sell or steal land) is incomprehensible to the Leavers.   And it could be argued that imagining that we can own land (see it as an exploitable resource), makes sustainability inherently impossible, ultimately.

Leavers assume that we belong to the land, Takers assume that the land belongs to us.    On this very fundamental issue (quite literally: we stand on it) two very different mind-sets are based - with all sorts of consequences into all branches of human thought & therefore action, from economics to spirituality.

There are some 'Taker' thinkers who have started questioning this assumption in terms of making our economies more sustainable & fair, in very interesting ways.

Land Ownership

Margrit Kennedy brilliantly addressed the problem of transitioning to a more rational land ownership system in her book  Interest & Inflation Free money  Perhaps because of the title of the book this part has not received much attention, but in fact the issue of changing the design of money & changing the design of land ownership cannot really be separated, at root.

You can download the pdf of this book on Kennedy's site:

http://www.margritkennedy.de/books.html