People who see economies as separate from other parts of society and the biosphere often ignore (or address separately) the harm done to other parts of society and the biosphere. Most leading business schools, for example, still teach the mechanistic idea that optimizing near-term “shareholder value” should be a firm’s primary goal. This idea poses a clear and present danger to the health of human communities and all life on Earth because it assumes the firm is separate from the greater whole of society, as well as from the biosphere upon whose life-supporting functions the firm, its employees, and its customers depend. No amount of precision in reductionist thought can ever remedy the harm done by ignoring such critical relationships. Instead, a first crucial step must be to shed light on the problem by putting honest prices (to the extent possible) on wastes that harm other parts of the system, as well as the inputs and services they provide.