A serious evaluation of the Humans’ predicament will not ignore the relationship between human achievement and human misery. Tract upon tract of human territory exists in suboptimal condition; underdeveloped and rotten. Similarly, for each human individual living in at least relative comfort, there are perhaps two who do not. Capital has created shining beacons of achievement, but their very scarcity points to a fundamental dysfunction. Arguments about relative levels of regulation or taxation within the global free market belie a more concrete necessary discourse. The permanent leverage advanced national economies exert over the tenant economies of the poorer territories will not simply even out, too powerful is their current advantage; convergence is unlikely. Conversely, blame and agency must not be apportioned to the firms, individuals and governments of the richer countries. The complex economic relationships between the poor world and the rich are now intrinsic and inextricable. Poor relative economic conditions exist in pockets of the rich countries, and great wealth coheres in the capitals and boardrooms of the poor. As economic flows broaden and equilibria becomes rarer, categorising nations by relative wealth will lose meaning. Economic self-determination is desirable but any endogeny is sporadic and exception rather than rule. A tyranny of monopoly emerges, whether by state, region or corporation. Great resistance, fueled by resentment at material superiority, overspills into fear and intolerance. Internal or external inequalities are both damaging to social coherence and even inherent to unregulated capitalist economies. Piecemeal legislative attempts to ameliorate the excesses of prevailing disequilibria will fail, since capital suborns unenlightened political processes. Lastly, no serious rational alternatives to the prevalent accidental modes of economic relations have been systematically attempted – there is then no practical evidential base to justify the Humans’ economic system. Locally real, programmatic endogeny is therefore necessary as a precondition of productive permanence, in order to secure lasting capacity and avoid distracting conflict en route. ‘Programmatic’ means coordinated, democratic and phased; ‘endogeny’ refers to a chiefly internal and self-ordered economic dynamic. A priority is given to longer-term investment and the temporal consequences of economic activity. Societal aims and intentions are explicit; economic activity serves these aims. Resources and the benefits of local resources are chiefly locally held and invested, and capital flows are transparent. Since global interconnectedness is real, no islands of economic uncertainty can exist; there can be no leakage or waste. This shift is chiefly a psychological and political one; the human planet realm of human activity is no longer a broad space for exploitation and acquisition but rather a narrow venue and limited vehicle for achievement.