As always I appreciate your eloquent work which provides much food for thought.
You seem to misunderstand libertarianism when you write, "Yet it seldom occurs to libertarians either, who normally think in terms of autonomous individuals."
Libertarians believe humanity is interdependent.
F. A. Hayek in his essay "Individualism: True and False" differentiates the false individualism you are writing about from true individualism. He describes true individualism as “a product of an acute consciousness of the limitations of the individual mind which induces an attitude of humility toward the impersonal and anonymous social processes by which individuals help to create things greater than they know.”
False individualism assumes that “everything which man achieves is the direct result of, and therefore subject to, the control of individual reason.” It is easy to see how false individualism leads to collectivism. If everything is subject to individual reason, collectivists think, why not let the “wisest” people fix the problems we see?
Hayek’s antidote for such hubris is “true individualism.” He regards the individual “not as highly rational and intelligent, but as a very irrational and fallible being, whose individual errors are corrected only in the course of a social process, and which aims at making the best of a very imperfect material.”
Every human being, even the most expert among us, makes errors. Uncoerced interactions with others are essential to finding and correcting our errors.
In my mind, the idea is to secure maximum liberty for each individual. Once established, all such individuals will spontaneously form whatever social structures appeal to them. The result would be millions of varied social structures, each creating, experimenting and seeing what actually works. It would create a very dynamic system of evolving community structures, under the command of no one.
Human beings would have a wide variety of communities to choose from - whatever suits their desires. And, of course, each established community would have its own rules regarding acceptance of new individuals. If and when a community begins surpassing Dunbar's Number, it may split off into a new community, perhaps with identical rules, perhaps not.
Excellent, as always. Charles' understanding of the need to balance the economic/financial sphere and the political/state sphere with a strong social sphere is in sync with Rudolf Steiner's "Threefold Social Order" in which he said a healthy society must maintain balance between the three realms. Steiner called what Charles is calling the social realm the spiritual, but his understanding of it was similar. What we have today is an extreme imbalance where the social/spiritual realm (including, especially, education and discourse) is controlled by the political, which in turn is controlled by the economic. And as both Charles and Steiner understand, the key is to revitalize the social/spiritual sphere of life, the values of which should be guiding the other two.
Steiner's three spheres sound a lot like the Indo-European three-fold social order: those who fight, those who pray, and those who work. As such there's a long provenance to this form of social organization.
"And as both Charles and Steiner understand, the key is to revitalize the social/spiritual sphere of life, the values of which should be guiding the other two."
I noticed Charles also using the phrase 'values' quite a bit, as is the common practice. It seems to me that this is an unconscious reflection of the primacy of the mind-set of the market in contemporary society. A 'value' is after all, a thing of the market - it reflects a price that one is willing to pay in order to gain a thing, or willing to receive in order to lose it. By contrast, one almost never hears of 'virtue' (aside from when followed by the qualifier 'signal').
To my mind, one of the many changes we require in our social order to is a reorientation away from 'our values' (whatever those are) and towards 'virtues'. In the common usage, a value is merely a thing one believes; it says precisely nothing about the character of the believer. On the other hand, a virtue is a positive trait one possesses - faith, courage, fortitude, mercy, etc. It says a lot that these have been largely forgotten, and much could be gained by a renewed emphasis upon them.
I like your revitalisation of the word 'virtue'. However, I think that the need for distinction between the two is just a distraction from the knowing that we have of the semantics of 'value' here. Semantics is an organic process whereby the lexicon can never really be captured, it constantly evolves. Words shift and change over time through the people who use them, for a myriad of reasons. This can be extremely disconcerting to those of us who enjoy exact parameters of word definition (myself included just to be clear!) but I had to accept the futility of trying to stop my kids and all their friends using 'versus' as a verb - as in 'Who are we versing this weekend?' when talking about their game of soccer and stop being such a word grinch! I couldn't win, my arguments made NO sense to them whatsoever! I must overcome my constraints and have to admit I love that the language is alive and sense making is not impeded by rules. It can also happen more insidiously as in the recent change of the definition of what a 'vaccine' is. The word 'virtue' comes with a couple of centuries' worth of religious persecution, judgement and othering, not to mention hypocrisy. Consider, 'She is a virtuous woman, I see her every Sunday in Church.' Now consider 'I really value your friendship'. Values are the things that we individually hold dear and of course many of those fall into the common space, virtues are traits which have been prescribed by communities in order to encourage social uptake and this is why they have been co-opted to 'signal' where one stands on that communal political space. We can set the monetary value of a washing machine at $1000 and it's value in our lives as priceless! The value is both outside and within. For me, virtue has spent too long being used as a tool for social control, the perfect word for our times really.
Conversely, to reverse your point and apply the same argument to 'value', this word has now taken on the connotation of an empty phrase deployed for propaganda purposes. Consider how often you hear a globalist leader blathering on about 'our values', without ever defining what, precisely, those values are. As a result of this, 'our values' has become something of a running gag in large swathes of the culture, as it codes not for that which is truly useful, good, or beautiful, but all too often as the precise opposite of these things.
Yes! True, I can see that. So let's go beyond the assembly of letters and really try to articulate carefully with each other the felt sentiment and physical vibrations we are actually trying to impart. I suspect you and I both want many of the same things and probably have lots of the same values AND virtues. In these times of digital communications on subjects which have great meaning and import and are really important right now, we miss all the sublingual stuff, faces, presence, smiles. I miss the point at which we realise we are all saying the same thing in slightly different ways and have a laugh about it over a cup of tea, or whatever tickles your fancy! :-)
It's true that language picks up connotations as it goes. And my gut reaction to the words virtue and value won't necessarily be the same as my neighbours. I think most people would resonate with Charles's use of words though or at least understand what he means.
"There is no such thing as an autonomous individual."
The goal of spiritual development is full autonomy. Consider enlightened ones such as the Buddha. Was he needy? Healthy development proceeds from total dependence (think infants) to striving for independence (think adolescents) then, from a position of independence, voluntarily seeking interdependence because it is a win-win strategy and ultimately the path to unity. Unhealthy development occurs when the natural striving for independence is thwarted, the result is co-dependence and all the conflict that goes with it.
"The true nature of the human being—indeed, of being itself—is relationship...We are creatures of dependency to the core."
At our core is the Oneness, which is pure being. Relationship came about secondarily, when the One individuated in order to experience Itself. Hu-mans thus have a dual nature: "Hu" or divine (pure being) and "man" from manus or hand. We are "divine manipulators" who have become so engrossed in our doings in the illusion of separation that we have lost touch with our beings which, beyond the illusion, are all One Being. Restoring balance involves transitioning from conflictual co-dependence toward harmonious, loving relationship among free and independent individuals. Only those who are free can truly love and the greatest gesture of love is to bestow freedom, in imitation of Divinity.
yes, the Buddha was needy. he needed to eat and received help from others and he needed to sleep to which he received shelter at least in part from others and he needed safety which is not easy to do on your own with eyes closed in lotus position and he needed love to which others help provide and he needed meaning to which service of others was required...
Siddhartha Gautama was indeed needy but he saw that his neediness and the neediness of others caused suffering. He tried to conquer his own neediness by practicing asceticism. But that was still "doing" in the illusion. Finally, he stopped doing, sat still and calm, fully present, fully being, fully self: unlimited Self. He was now Buddha, the "awakened one."
Until we are also awakened, we will have needs we must address. But if the suffering of the world troubles us as it did Siddhartha, we will work to end suffering. We can do this by meeting each others' immediate needs. But if you give a man a fish when he is hungry, he will need another fish tomorrow. A greater service is to teach him how to fish, after learning how to fish yourself.
i think the end of the story is that the Awakened One awoke to the fact that he had very human needs that must be met if he's to remain awake, thus the 8-fold path and 4-nobel truths detailing how to reach and reside in enlightenment.
There are necessary biological thoughts/needs (food, water, air, sunlight, etc), and then there are superfluous psychological thoughts/desires, which Buddha largely spoke about. BIG difference.
Independence and autonomy are clearly only ever illusions from a practical perspective. Everyone alive needs to eat to sustain themselves, and even the Buddha rejected starvation as a worthwhile spiritual path. Likewise everyone has their autonomy limited by their vulnerability to things such as sickness, old age, and death, as Buddha mentioned several times. Infants develop from a more centralized form of dependence to a more distributed form of dependence as they get older, not toward any kind of genuine independence. And as old age approaches, the more distributed form of dependence returns again to a more centralized form. The rules of this world seem to have been deliberately or by necessity arranged to disallow true independence. Maybe there is an absolute kind of independence beyond this world, but you seem to be saying that we are all one being beyond this world, so even there in your view there are no true autonomous individuals.
The One, our core identity, is, by definition, autonomous. We are projections or representations of the One into the illusion of separation and as such are endowed with divine qualities such as creativity and sovereignty. We are "made in the image of God."
Our identity is unitary. There is exactly one of you, not 1.234 of you. This image or reflection of the One pervades the illusion as quantum. There is no 1.234 electron either. Although your unitary sense of self appears distinct from mine, they are in fact one Self and this can be directly experienced from within the illusion. Think of the facets on the surface of a gemstone. Each facet is a unique "self" but all are one with the whole gemstone "Self." The distinction is a matter of awareness and perspective.
As hu-mans with a dual nature we have the ability to shift perspective at will, or would if we had not become entranced by the illusion. Individuals such as the Buddha have dispelled the illusion and claimed their sovereignty and unlimited potential as creators. Some choose to identify as the One while others embark on a sovereign journey through creation to experience Self from many perspectives. Such enlightened individuals can traverse timelines and bend reality. (See my recent article.) Full autonomy, no dependency. All relationships are voluntary and without hidden agendas based on need. The collective consciousness of humanity is being called to -- indeed is being pressed to -- achieve a measure of enlightenment. Although we may not all become buddhas right away, it is beneficial to understand the direction to move in, the goal to aim toward. Charles asserts dependency and constraint as our core condition, as a metaphysical principle: no social construct will work if not founded on this basis. I disagree. Our destiny is profoundly greater.
I think denial of dependency and constraint as our core condition for all practical purposes is an obstacle to positive change because it discourages compassion in practice. If everyone is in the clouds thinking that, with enough spiritual effort, they can free themselves from the limits of reality, then they will have a good excuse for advising others to do the same in lieu of actually helping them, and, of course, if the other person finds themselves unable to completely free themselves by spiritual effort, then it will be attributed to them not trying hard enough or not understanding correctly or somesuch. None of that is new, it's the kind of spirituality that has been popular for a long time now. Advocating for it is like advocating for a monarch who has been ruling your country for centuries while everyone can see that it's been going down in flames.
On the other hand, I agree that there are some apparently supernatural principles of causation operating in the world and I have some reason to suspect that things like timeline traversal and manipulation are real. But there seem to be hard limits on what can be accomplished or is allowed to be accomplished by using them. I strongly doubt that we who are in the world are even able to make decisions about those sorts of things except by forcing the hand of whoever is able to make decisions about those sorts of things. I agree that there is a transcendent reality, but in my experience the transcendent reality - or at least the nearest transcendent reality to us - isn't one of total unity. It's more complicated than that. Given how screwy this world is, I'd estimate that the nearest transcendent reality must be comparably screwy.
Consider as an example another enlightened one, Jesus. He realized the truth, that at our core there is only one Self: "I am in the Father, and the Father in me." As such, he was autonomous and unconstrained, which he demonstrated through many miraculous works. The realization that all selves are one Self, the experience that other is self, produces a response that is beyond compassion, beyond empathy, beyond relating, to self-identification: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” He didn't mean that symbolically, but literally. This identification with both the Father and with all others, even his enemies, caused him to minister to both their spiritual AND practical needs, providing them with food when they were hungry and healing them when they were ill. Jesus did not teach the people to live with their head in the clouds and make excuses not to help those in need. Rather he urged them, even commanded them to "love thy neighbour as thyself," leaving no doubt about what practical love is when he told the story of the Good Samaritan. He did indeed urge spiritual effort, declaring that the result would be that "ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." Free from limitation, free from dependency, empowered as he himself was. He stated that such a state was within reach of everyone: "the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do."
"None of that is new, it's the kind of spirituality that has been popular for a long time now."
Agreed. The teachings of Jesus have been popular for thousands of years, already.
"Advocating for it is like advocating for a monarch who has been ruling your country for centuries while everyone can see that it's been going down in flames."
You make a good point. Why hasn't Buddhism or Christianity or any other spiritual tradition based on purported universal truth led to a better world after all this time?
My response is that we have indeed made progress, albeit slowly, and are on the cusp of much greater progress. I believe that the world is not as barbaric as it once was, despite appearances to the contrary. I'm certain that if nuclear weapons had been available a thousand years ago, they would have been used without hesitation. Much of the turmoil happening now is due to exposure of darkness that has been hidden for centuries coming to light, like a boil bursting before healing can begin. I personally experienced heart warming compassion from many strangers recently, as I evacuated from Ukraine. They are modern day Good Samaritans, and I believe there are more of them in the world than than ever before.
What also has been popular for a long time is the belief that humans are so dependent and limited that they need a ruling class to manage them. Or worse, their essential nature is evil and so they must be restricted, controlled, oppressed, and even cleansed.
People are free to believe what they will. The One Creator (the Father) has ordained it. They can believe in limitation or freedom and what they believe is what they will experience. Charles writes against the libertarian ideal of individual autonomy, even going as far as writing that it does not exist, as a metaphysical principle. I countered his assertions so as to remind people that they have a choice to believe otherwise, as a metaphysical principle. Society can organize around the principles of freedom and autonomy rather than limitation and dependency.
so long as we exist in the material realm, ie. alive, we are dependent on others. this idea of oneness bypasses the reality of duality so long as I have a body...
Very thoughtful article. We are truly lacking a national debate on this society changing shift to CBDC and the real pros and cons.
It sometimes seems that the elites not only do not want a public debate, they are actively pushing against it. Via distraction narrative to keep the masses busy. (Oscars awards anyone?).
And via creating crisis-response to force in their desired end results measures without debate. The covid manidatory Digital ID was one such move that could have been used as a foundation of CBDC.
"Let us not speak, then, of freedom from social constraint. Let us ask instead how we should be constrained, and by whom. To whom should we be accountable, to whom should we be in debt, on whom should we depend in our neediness?"
I'd prefer to make all decisions about who I depend on myself. thanks. Everyone from state to nosy individual neighbors who have other ideas about how this should work can fuck right off :)
I think the key there is the part about depending on others. In a free society, one should indeed be largely free in the choice of who to depend on ... but no matter what, one will be dependent on others for virtually everything. Then again, one doesn't always have such freedom - for example, one can't always choose one's neighbors, but must in any case find a way to get along with them.
I guess what I didn't like about it was the implication (via "we" language) that choices about dependence should be collective decisions. As for modern neighbors, the mostly get along with each other by not interacting at all, which ironically is largely due to (IMO largely illegitimate) collective decision making about how e.g. social safety nets should work being made elsewhere.
Good Lord, BLK. CE made that statement in this post? Guess I never got that far. My eyes glazed over & I got a brain-freeze slurpee headache pretty quick on this one.
I mean, that just chills the bones doesn't it? The banality of Charles Eisenstein painting submission to authority as a loving attitude of dutiful service aligned with acknowledgment of our interdependence. Holy Sheep-dip, Batman. Chairman Mao would've been proud to have included this in his little red book.
Meet the new boss! Same as the old boss! Gee, Charles! You really are a forward-thinker!
It's interesting to consider the very very wealthy in relation of CBDC's. Such people rarely hold money; rather they have (and exchange) assets. Many of these people often have nothing in their pockets - no loose change, no wallet, no credit card - their purchases are performed by others.
The rest of us, as economic actors, operate almost exclusively with money. If CBDC's replace money, how easy it will be to control and coerce us; but how easy it will also be for the very wealthy to avoid such sanctions. What a coincidence.
Very good! In my childhood back in 1960's I lived in the still intact, small farm, small town agrarian part of the Midwest in Wisconsin, a direct descendent in fact of the world pictured in the Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series you mentioned in your essay. The positive social constraints on behavior were strongly in evidence insuring civility and honesty. It was an ordered ecosystem with the base components being the family units, local small businesses - even the banks, and small farms, organized in rural townships, towns and counties each with real self governing powers. Civic organizations, churches, volunteer groups - like volunteer fire fighters, I remember my high school history teacher hurriedly leaving class when the village fire whistle blew., informal neighborly help - my dad getting help getting the hay in before it rained, larger family networks within families that had been around for generations. My ancestors arrived in the Midwest in the 1850's and built this agrarian culture, the economics being favorable to the project. Economic forces starting in the 70's destroyed the base of small farms and small businesses. How to rebuild something like this in the face of countervailing economic forces is a conundrum!
"The wealthy would suffer social pressure if they were too ostentatious or failed to uphold civic responsibilities."That is quite a statement. One must ignore facts to think social pressure would have any power to influence the wealthy. Manufacturing Consent by Herman and Chomsky reports serious and broad research results that totally disprove that quote. The wealthy are insulated from the civic pressure. In fact, they use the hoarded wealth to secure their wealth by manipulating the civic members. Also, civic pressure it something that is becoming more unlikely all the time. The glimmers of civic competence that have been happening are still far to insufficient to be social pressure that has any hope of making changes.
We live in a time of great moral corruption. Pedophiles are running the world and preventing civic minded people from doing anything about it, even preventing them from detecting it. It will not work. There are forces involved and people who realize what is happening. The terrible consequences of nationalism, central power, hording, and global population control (with reduction agenda) by influence are forcing some eyes open. The brave who take action are the only hope we have. Civic responsibility has never worked. Not in all of history. It has had little effect when there was any at all. Then it was short lived. The ways of people who do bad things is with us still. It includes ignoring ones civic duty and those who do nothing.
Charles has some brilliant ideas. His work learning human ways is too idealistic. Somehow, as is the case with many, he does not realize the full extent of evil within some. All men are not angles. Some have incredible power obtained because we nurture a monetary system. They create economics and manipulate it to their advantage and to express some very evil personal traits. The idea that there is some power in civic life that will protect us is invalid. We are almost completely powerless.
Not one single person was asked to be a participant in any of our forms of government or most, if not all, of our social systems. That includes the one that gave us the money systems. It doesn't matter how history brought it to the world. What matters is what we want to do and will do about it. The human species is one people working constantly in systems we did not create or were even asked to participate in. Lysander Spooner wrote No Treason: The Constitution of no Authority. Like me, he does not approve of being born into the culture and being forced to abide by its rules, laws, and ways. The Constitution bound only those who were offered the opportunity to agree to accept it by majority vote. Even so, there were many who saw it as a defeat of the rebellion that created this nation.
We are subjects. Nothing more. We must comply or face consequences that can be death. That is not liberty. The governments must be brought to the people at intervals that make them an agreement of the people. There is no agreement. There has been no agreement in the history of the world. It has always been the powerful subjugating the others. We need an agreement. It can still happen.
With modern technology, a global agreement can come at last. It will, if permitted, be egalitarian. All will have the same access to the products of society. The productive capacity of mankind, Earth, and the Universe is far more than everyone could even want. Instead, we have so much wast the wealthy are able to have unlimited access to the products of society while nearly everyone else is limited. Banking is like granting bankers unrestricted access to the products of society for digging ditches and filling them back in over and over. Creating military forces and deploying them is beyond waste. It is evil altogether, and so many people think it is simply the organic byproduct of fallible mankind. It is not. It is the product of some who want to do evil things. Being fallible is one thing; being evil is another. Evil people delight in torture, rape, and murder of little children. We all know evidence has surfaced implicating some of the most powerful people in the world. It got suppressed so quickly and effective countered it was a little spark instead of a growing flame of purification. That alone demonstrates the power of evil over the population.
The get into the mind. They force the mind to obey, even to reason as directed. Two plus two is five and defended. Fallible people are susceptible to faulty logic. Receptive minds receive whatever is available. The choices are so thoroughly selected and controlled, few are making choice outside those being presented. People say, "think outside the box" as if it something they can do. If only they really could. The indoctrination and conditioning of children is too effective for that to be possible until something is done to change it. That would mean the end of money altogether.
No better from of money will protect people from the people who have no morals, ethics, feelings, or restraints. Those people will always find a way to corner the money. It is simply too easy to do to resist. But money doesn't have to exist in any form at all. The only reason for money is to discriminate access to the products of society. It doesn't exist as a convenience. It doesn't exist to buy things. It exist to prevent buying. Have you never been able to buy because you don't have enough money or credit?
Charles say, "Merchants were much more likely to accept the IOUs of people of “good account” than they were of the town drunkard." Sounds like logic, doesn't it. Only by ignoring other facts and logic is that possibly logic. It assumes too much and leaves out too much. It says the town drunk is simply another case of human fallibility expressing. It say nothing about the cause of that form of failure. People are the result of living. They come helplessly and nearly blank. Living shapes them more thoroughly than a sculptor can shape clay. Living in an imposed social system thought to be an agreement of its members in which money has segregated people into haves and havenots produced town drunks and countless other such things. In a world of humans living as family organism, as Charles says, will shape people to be angles. In a world that offers all the products of the people to all the people according to their own desires and need as they fell them will shape the malleable humans into angles such as have not yet been conceived. It will be a process. It takes time. Now is the time, before it is too late. It will root out the evil like Charles thinks it already does.
I respect and admire Charles. His ideas are absolutely brilliant. I expect he will either evolve or not. I have written to him many times without reply trying to get him to think of a world that has no form of money at all, just people loving one another like the family we are and sharing everything. There is no place for money when the products of society are the products of the human family. The improvements in life will be heavenly. The beauty of mankind needs an avenue of expression and reinforcement. Evil will pass into the darkness of human history. The laws of nature will respond. From the other planes wonders will come. Now is the time. Too many horrors are building momentum. We need but agree on something that works. I see it as a loving mankind working to care for everyone. Imagine the evolution of Love in such a world.
Long-winded, useless hand-wringing. "Peoples' referendum"? Seriously? The FRB is a private corporation owned predominantly by foreign banking families, all of whom essentially own the USA. US citizens can no more effect FRB policy than can slaves whip their masters. Single global digital currency is well on its' way folks. Money itself is ingeniously engineered criminal activity. Money launderers are not the bad guys-- they are pesky competition. If the paper note is not redeemable into a fixed quantity of intrinsic value, buyer and seller have an invisible thief present at every transaction.
Biggest blood-sucking scam every perpetrated on humanity. Very simple to understand. That it works at all is an illusion of belief indicating a worldwide population of deluded fools. Every wealthy person knows its' all a racket and the only way to prevent ones' wealth being sucked dry in perpetuity is to emulate the parasitic behavior of the gangsters running the scam.
Jesus, Charles-- still talking as if all this is unconscious, misguided, well-intended slapping ourselves in the face? As if the "democratic process" can overpower big money? Those days splattered all over our streets way back when, along with the brains of JFK.
You disempower your readers and white-wash the wicked. You bury simple, glaringly evident realities in cold, brilliantly executed, complex intellectual blizzards that reveal nothing new at all and obscure everything that an individual soul-seeker might need to free their mind and survive all this with deeper humanity intact.
How about total destruction of personal identity/the imagined self? This will result in joyous exhumation of the moribund natural spirit within and free the soul to shine real light into our choked & gasping human social realm. In other words, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's Jessica.
What's going on in the world "out there", socio-political-economic-whatever is well-advanced frothing madness based on the lie "superior/inferior being"-- that "people in charge" are special, worthy to decide for the rest of us the course human activity will take.
There is no solution, no remedy, no fixing that which is from the start ill-conceived, diseased, born of fear, dread and suspicion resulting in pathological desire to watch over and control every aspect of the lives of ones' fellow man.
Nothing healthy comes from force wielded by deadly power. Don't even dream any of this can be fixed. Imagine trying to start a peoples' movement to revamp Hitlers' Reich or, heck, even reform the tiny family of Charlie Manson while Charlie is standing right there. It can't be done. Not without you turning yourself into Chuckie or Adolf. Belief in rule is itself a symptom of profound, deep-seated, paranoid mental illness. It is fear, dread & hatred of ones' fellow man-- never mind its' banal appearance, or that it isn't sick if "everyone is doing it."
Fix instead whatever it is within you that still believes that mankind can thrive under any system of forced rule at all.
"Until people hold the power of love over love of power, the world will never know peace" -- Jimi Hendrix
Edgar Allen Poe, that's some name you have chosen. I am aligned with your ideas and observations. I am very optimistic, though. I see the way ahead. I took it long ago. But that only resulted in my presence there. On a planet that supports billions of people and countless other forms of life, that is not enough. The way ahead for everyone requires at least nearly everyone.
While the momentum barrelling toward total destruction rages on, opportunity reveals itself. The generations of human effort has provided us with that opportunity. The social systems we were born into have only been modified slightly to serve those who derive the most from them. That has always been the way. But there is an a side effect. Maybe it was accidental, but it doesn't matter. The billions are now able to communicate, and virtually instantly, in real time. We want peace and prosperity along with all that fulfills us. We want the world that provides for us to keep doing so. That is now something the ruling class sees as vital to them. That is the opportunity. "The basic idea of symbiotic transformation is that advances in bottom-up social empowerment within a capitalist society will be most stable and defendable when such social empowerment also helps solve certain real problems faced by the capitalists and other elites." Erik Olen Wright in Envisioning Real Utopias.
People are too over-specialized or too ignorant. There is a very large group of people who are not capable of much, and that includes producing a living for themselves on their own. Dependencies on society are huge. But that's okay in an egalitarian society. Though it is far below what it should be, society is providing. It is providing far too much and that damages the capitalist systems. If taken too far, it destroys them. All that is necessary at this time is to remove the monetary system completely, maybe in stages. Money is the control used to keep the obsolete monetary systems operating to advantage the few. Waste became a primary method used to counter over-abundance. Military and war nonsense is one of the big ones, but there are many nearly as big. All operate by the implementation of the monetary system upon the people. The people create value. The ruling class take it and dispense it as they want back to the people. Stop taking money and stop charging money. The systems will morph and improve.
Hi Adam-- then by that statement you do not trust people who imagine power over you. You are on the right track, sir. Certainly these folks have made it their lifes' purpose to attack and belittle you & I and everyone else not on their direct payroll.
It is not my intent to attack or belittle CE personally, as some might assume. I do believe he is a good-hearted, well-intended chap, as are most who elevate themselves to standing on soapboxes. My only intent is to kick it out from under him using simple truths observable to anyone whenever he floats off in support of long-dead & stinking paradigms. Humans must keep moving to stay healthy and it should be glaringly obvious by now that this sh*t doesn't work, has never worked, nor will it ever. We either let all this fall apart or lose our humanity altogether. Humans are about to be outlawed.
If it were mere opinion, the things I say, then why should anyone be moved to rush over in defense of Charles' words? Why the need to dust him off, prop him back up onto the soapbox then attempt to deliver me a spanking?
My words are not for everyone. My words sting only those who live in created dreamworlds inside their head. My words are for the fearless, the honest, the defeated, whose hearts are sick to death of being sold worthless garbage and force-fed muck that clogs their veins & fogs their brains. My words are for anyone here alive and kicking enough to smell the suited & tied rats lording their ugly gun-trash over us all, stealing our minds, our energy, our creativity, our very souls.
My words require no belief, no trust. One need only put the phone away & take a look around. See the sun that fires all of life, feel it warm your bones. I didn't make it, I am just showing it to you. The sun says "the emperor has no clothes".
Charles Eisenstein still thinks he does. You tell me what you see, Adam. Are our purveyors of "currency" (FRB) just benign fellow humans whose policies are worthy of in-depth intellectual analysis because they are capable & trustworthy leaders whose minds are open to warm-hearted guidance from us caring, loving human beings? Or are they simply the blood-sucking parasites that their diabolically concocted schemes reveal them to be?
Dear Edgar, much I can agree with you here and I do wish Charles although he tries a bit would reveal some of these basic assumptions you imply. What to do with the rage. Notice he slips in the now accept reparations for....slavery one assumes. In a system that has exploited too many. Remember the 1%?
I have watched Charles grow HIS community and that has taken a lot of privelege in my view and actually down right sycophancy. I was pushed, hard to join his anti vax crusade.
Personally I am interested in "functional democracy" and I am with you that some clean up and differentiation may be required. I too am basically anti crypto. This shift will be a plague of another kind. And again I get Charles as hugely IDEALISTIC and he has admitted to naivete in the past. Thanks for questioning authority like this and its smooth delivery.
I see boolean both/and logic as best and we still get absolutist binary either or proclamations, not suggestions. I do believe community control has to occur at some level. Hang in brother. You are not alone...how about reparations for all the exploited and differently abled?
Of course the powers that be and that in our case I believe is the WEF currently willl enact its great plan . Creating scenarios that allow their realities to emerge. I’m not sure that being awake can stop the digital currencies or domee were of their other plans for us .However , how , we liive in a cashless or cash determined society will be our choice . I have a personal objection to Deliveroo and other things like it, In my observation it takes more than it can give for those who have to do it , the choice to use iit is taking away more than you imagine , through “ comfort” For me it is based on the principle that it proposes convenience to us , convenience will be the killer blue as I see it - “ you will own nothing and be happy …etc”
That’s where I believe the choices of the future will matter . Systems of community living such as “ the community oven “ , exchanging services . Methods of living adopted in much poorer countries can teach us many things long forgotten in our Western havens . I would think things like this are a method of protest for the future as well the hope of direct protest against these changes that may come by stealth . I applaud your detailed presentation of economics Charles, and I want to understand more again knowledge is the beginning of intelligent objection , please write more on this .
A great article, as always. However, it is incorrect to note that 'if you can pay for everything, you don’t need anyone'. Certainly, you aren't embedded in belonging, community and trust. However, being able to pay for services makes you more, not less, dependent on others who provide such services. The richest people are the most infantalized. Some of them can't even cook, launder or drive themselves around.
Not being able to cook, etc. just means they're so rich they don't even need themselves :D The money does it all for them. Of course, the money does need everyone else to accomplish anything, but I imagine it's easy to pretend otherwise beyond a certain point.
I'm really shocked, Charles, that you would write so positively of Celo and other social impact "for good" blockchains - in an otherwise excellent article. Have you read much of Allison McDowell? I think her analysis of impact investing is right on. I believe those engaging in this space (blockchain currencies and esp. those "for good" - ie. impact) are just (in some cases unwittingly) furthering the globalist totalitarian agenda of exploitation and domination by normalizing the tools, building the infrastructure, and confusing people. This article also explains more: https://thefeistyadelie.com/2022/03/04/the-new-surveillance-capitalism/
We need a rational debate for sure it’s a paradox of agency and agency of control . How will we decide , which is our right within the tenets of freedom , how will we decide when the control is so effective , they know our biology and not just our pockets
As always I appreciate your eloquent work which provides much food for thought.
You seem to misunderstand libertarianism when you write, "Yet it seldom occurs to libertarians either, who normally think in terms of autonomous individuals."
Libertarians believe humanity is interdependent.
F. A. Hayek in his essay "Individualism: True and False" differentiates the false individualism you are writing about from true individualism. He describes true individualism as “a product of an acute consciousness of the limitations of the individual mind which induces an attitude of humility toward the impersonal and anonymous social processes by which individuals help to create things greater than they know.”
False individualism assumes that “everything which man achieves is the direct result of, and therefore subject to, the control of individual reason.” It is easy to see how false individualism leads to collectivism. If everything is subject to individual reason, collectivists think, why not let the “wisest” people fix the problems we see?
Hayek’s antidote for such hubris is “true individualism.” He regards the individual “not as highly rational and intelligent, but as a very irrational and fallible being, whose individual errors are corrected only in the course of a social process, and which aims at making the best of a very imperfect material.”
Every human being, even the most expert among us, makes errors. Uncoerced interactions with others are essential to finding and correcting our errors.
Hayek's essay is here: https://fee.org/articles/individualism-true-and-false/
My two-part essay based on Hayek's essay begins here: https://mindsetshifts.substack.com/p/taming-the-dictator-within-part-1?s=w
Excellent comment.
In my mind, the idea is to secure maximum liberty for each individual. Once established, all such individuals will spontaneously form whatever social structures appeal to them. The result would be millions of varied social structures, each creating, experimenting and seeing what actually works. It would create a very dynamic system of evolving community structures, under the command of no one.
Human beings would have a wide variety of communities to choose from - whatever suits their desires. And, of course, each established community would have its own rules regarding acceptance of new individuals. If and when a community begins surpassing Dunbar's Number, it may split off into a new community, perhaps with identical rules, perhaps not.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191001-dunbars-number-why-we-can-only-maintain-150-relationships
Millions of communities creating, sharing, trading, exchanging. It would be VERY exciting to be a part of that.
Excellent, as always. Charles' understanding of the need to balance the economic/financial sphere and the political/state sphere with a strong social sphere is in sync with Rudolf Steiner's "Threefold Social Order" in which he said a healthy society must maintain balance between the three realms. Steiner called what Charles is calling the social realm the spiritual, but his understanding of it was similar. What we have today is an extreme imbalance where the social/spiritual realm (including, especially, education and discourse) is controlled by the political, which in turn is controlled by the economic. And as both Charles and Steiner understand, the key is to revitalize the social/spiritual sphere of life, the values of which should be guiding the other two.
Steiner's three spheres sound a lot like the Indo-European three-fold social order: those who fight, those who pray, and those who work. As such there's a long provenance to this form of social organization.
"And as both Charles and Steiner understand, the key is to revitalize the social/spiritual sphere of life, the values of which should be guiding the other two."
I noticed Charles also using the phrase 'values' quite a bit, as is the common practice. It seems to me that this is an unconscious reflection of the primacy of the mind-set of the market in contemporary society. A 'value' is after all, a thing of the market - it reflects a price that one is willing to pay in order to gain a thing, or willing to receive in order to lose it. By contrast, one almost never hears of 'virtue' (aside from when followed by the qualifier 'signal').
To my mind, one of the many changes we require in our social order to is a reorientation away from 'our values' (whatever those are) and towards 'virtues'. In the common usage, a value is merely a thing one believes; it says precisely nothing about the character of the believer. On the other hand, a virtue is a positive trait one possesses - faith, courage, fortitude, mercy, etc. It says a lot that these have been largely forgotten, and much could be gained by a renewed emphasis upon them.
I like your revitalisation of the word 'virtue'. However, I think that the need for distinction between the two is just a distraction from the knowing that we have of the semantics of 'value' here. Semantics is an organic process whereby the lexicon can never really be captured, it constantly evolves. Words shift and change over time through the people who use them, for a myriad of reasons. This can be extremely disconcerting to those of us who enjoy exact parameters of word definition (myself included just to be clear!) but I had to accept the futility of trying to stop my kids and all their friends using 'versus' as a verb - as in 'Who are we versing this weekend?' when talking about their game of soccer and stop being such a word grinch! I couldn't win, my arguments made NO sense to them whatsoever! I must overcome my constraints and have to admit I love that the language is alive and sense making is not impeded by rules. It can also happen more insidiously as in the recent change of the definition of what a 'vaccine' is. The word 'virtue' comes with a couple of centuries' worth of religious persecution, judgement and othering, not to mention hypocrisy. Consider, 'She is a virtuous woman, I see her every Sunday in Church.' Now consider 'I really value your friendship'. Values are the things that we individually hold dear and of course many of those fall into the common space, virtues are traits which have been prescribed by communities in order to encourage social uptake and this is why they have been co-opted to 'signal' where one stands on that communal political space. We can set the monetary value of a washing machine at $1000 and it's value in our lives as priceless! The value is both outside and within. For me, virtue has spent too long being used as a tool for social control, the perfect word for our times really.
Conversely, to reverse your point and apply the same argument to 'value', this word has now taken on the connotation of an empty phrase deployed for propaganda purposes. Consider how often you hear a globalist leader blathering on about 'our values', without ever defining what, precisely, those values are. As a result of this, 'our values' has become something of a running gag in large swathes of the culture, as it codes not for that which is truly useful, good, or beautiful, but all too often as the precise opposite of these things.
Yes! True, I can see that. So let's go beyond the assembly of letters and really try to articulate carefully with each other the felt sentiment and physical vibrations we are actually trying to impart. I suspect you and I both want many of the same things and probably have lots of the same values AND virtues. In these times of digital communications on subjects which have great meaning and import and are really important right now, we miss all the sublingual stuff, faces, presence, smiles. I miss the point at which we realise we are all saying the same thing in slightly different ways and have a laugh about it over a cup of tea, or whatever tickles your fancy! :-)
It's true that language picks up connotations as it goes. And my gut reaction to the words virtue and value won't necessarily be the same as my neighbours. I think most people would resonate with Charles's use of words though or at least understand what he means.
"There is no such thing as an autonomous individual."
The goal of spiritual development is full autonomy. Consider enlightened ones such as the Buddha. Was he needy? Healthy development proceeds from total dependence (think infants) to striving for independence (think adolescents) then, from a position of independence, voluntarily seeking interdependence because it is a win-win strategy and ultimately the path to unity. Unhealthy development occurs when the natural striving for independence is thwarted, the result is co-dependence and all the conflict that goes with it.
"The true nature of the human being—indeed, of being itself—is relationship...We are creatures of dependency to the core."
At our core is the Oneness, which is pure being. Relationship came about secondarily, when the One individuated in order to experience Itself. Hu-mans thus have a dual nature: "Hu" or divine (pure being) and "man" from manus or hand. We are "divine manipulators" who have become so engrossed in our doings in the illusion of separation that we have lost touch with our beings which, beyond the illusion, are all One Being. Restoring balance involves transitioning from conflictual co-dependence toward harmonious, loving relationship among free and independent individuals. Only those who are free can truly love and the greatest gesture of love is to bestow freedom, in imitation of Divinity.
yes, the Buddha was needy. he needed to eat and received help from others and he needed to sleep to which he received shelter at least in part from others and he needed safety which is not easy to do on your own with eyes closed in lotus position and he needed love to which others help provide and he needed meaning to which service of others was required...
Siddhartha Gautama was indeed needy but he saw that his neediness and the neediness of others caused suffering. He tried to conquer his own neediness by practicing asceticism. But that was still "doing" in the illusion. Finally, he stopped doing, sat still and calm, fully present, fully being, fully self: unlimited Self. He was now Buddha, the "awakened one."
Until we are also awakened, we will have needs we must address. But if the suffering of the world troubles us as it did Siddhartha, we will work to end suffering. We can do this by meeting each others' immediate needs. But if you give a man a fish when he is hungry, he will need another fish tomorrow. A greater service is to teach him how to fish, after learning how to fish yourself.
i think the end of the story is that the Awakened One awoke to the fact that he had very human needs that must be met if he's to remain awake, thus the 8-fold path and 4-nobel truths detailing how to reach and reside in enlightenment.
There are necessary biological thoughts/needs (food, water, air, sunlight, etc), and then there are superfluous psychological thoughts/desires, which Buddha largely spoke about. BIG difference.
Independence and autonomy are clearly only ever illusions from a practical perspective. Everyone alive needs to eat to sustain themselves, and even the Buddha rejected starvation as a worthwhile spiritual path. Likewise everyone has their autonomy limited by their vulnerability to things such as sickness, old age, and death, as Buddha mentioned several times. Infants develop from a more centralized form of dependence to a more distributed form of dependence as they get older, not toward any kind of genuine independence. And as old age approaches, the more distributed form of dependence returns again to a more centralized form. The rules of this world seem to have been deliberately or by necessity arranged to disallow true independence. Maybe there is an absolute kind of independence beyond this world, but you seem to be saying that we are all one being beyond this world, so even there in your view there are no true autonomous individuals.
The One, our core identity, is, by definition, autonomous. We are projections or representations of the One into the illusion of separation and as such are endowed with divine qualities such as creativity and sovereignty. We are "made in the image of God."
Our identity is unitary. There is exactly one of you, not 1.234 of you. This image or reflection of the One pervades the illusion as quantum. There is no 1.234 electron either. Although your unitary sense of self appears distinct from mine, they are in fact one Self and this can be directly experienced from within the illusion. Think of the facets on the surface of a gemstone. Each facet is a unique "self" but all are one with the whole gemstone "Self." The distinction is a matter of awareness and perspective.
As hu-mans with a dual nature we have the ability to shift perspective at will, or would if we had not become entranced by the illusion. Individuals such as the Buddha have dispelled the illusion and claimed their sovereignty and unlimited potential as creators. Some choose to identify as the One while others embark on a sovereign journey through creation to experience Self from many perspectives. Such enlightened individuals can traverse timelines and bend reality. (See my recent article.) Full autonomy, no dependency. All relationships are voluntary and without hidden agendas based on need. The collective consciousness of humanity is being called to -- indeed is being pressed to -- achieve a measure of enlightenment. Although we may not all become buddhas right away, it is beneficial to understand the direction to move in, the goal to aim toward. Charles asserts dependency and constraint as our core condition, as a metaphysical principle: no social construct will work if not founded on this basis. I disagree. Our destiny is profoundly greater.
I think denial of dependency and constraint as our core condition for all practical purposes is an obstacle to positive change because it discourages compassion in practice. If everyone is in the clouds thinking that, with enough spiritual effort, they can free themselves from the limits of reality, then they will have a good excuse for advising others to do the same in lieu of actually helping them, and, of course, if the other person finds themselves unable to completely free themselves by spiritual effort, then it will be attributed to them not trying hard enough or not understanding correctly or somesuch. None of that is new, it's the kind of spirituality that has been popular for a long time now. Advocating for it is like advocating for a monarch who has been ruling your country for centuries while everyone can see that it's been going down in flames.
On the other hand, I agree that there are some apparently supernatural principles of causation operating in the world and I have some reason to suspect that things like timeline traversal and manipulation are real. But there seem to be hard limits on what can be accomplished or is allowed to be accomplished by using them. I strongly doubt that we who are in the world are even able to make decisions about those sorts of things except by forcing the hand of whoever is able to make decisions about those sorts of things. I agree that there is a transcendent reality, but in my experience the transcendent reality - or at least the nearest transcendent reality to us - isn't one of total unity. It's more complicated than that. Given how screwy this world is, I'd estimate that the nearest transcendent reality must be comparably screwy.
Consider as an example another enlightened one, Jesus. He realized the truth, that at our core there is only one Self: "I am in the Father, and the Father in me." As such, he was autonomous and unconstrained, which he demonstrated through many miraculous works. The realization that all selves are one Self, the experience that other is self, produces a response that is beyond compassion, beyond empathy, beyond relating, to self-identification: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” He didn't mean that symbolically, but literally. This identification with both the Father and with all others, even his enemies, caused him to minister to both their spiritual AND practical needs, providing them with food when they were hungry and healing them when they were ill. Jesus did not teach the people to live with their head in the clouds and make excuses not to help those in need. Rather he urged them, even commanded them to "love thy neighbour as thyself," leaving no doubt about what practical love is when he told the story of the Good Samaritan. He did indeed urge spiritual effort, declaring that the result would be that "ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." Free from limitation, free from dependency, empowered as he himself was. He stated that such a state was within reach of everyone: "the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do."
"None of that is new, it's the kind of spirituality that has been popular for a long time now."
Agreed. The teachings of Jesus have been popular for thousands of years, already.
"Advocating for it is like advocating for a monarch who has been ruling your country for centuries while everyone can see that it's been going down in flames."
You make a good point. Why hasn't Buddhism or Christianity or any other spiritual tradition based on purported universal truth led to a better world after all this time?
My response is that we have indeed made progress, albeit slowly, and are on the cusp of much greater progress. I believe that the world is not as barbaric as it once was, despite appearances to the contrary. I'm certain that if nuclear weapons had been available a thousand years ago, they would have been used without hesitation. Much of the turmoil happening now is due to exposure of darkness that has been hidden for centuries coming to light, like a boil bursting before healing can begin. I personally experienced heart warming compassion from many strangers recently, as I evacuated from Ukraine. They are modern day Good Samaritans, and I believe there are more of them in the world than than ever before.
What also has been popular for a long time is the belief that humans are so dependent and limited that they need a ruling class to manage them. Or worse, their essential nature is evil and so they must be restricted, controlled, oppressed, and even cleansed.
People are free to believe what they will. The One Creator (the Father) has ordained it. They can believe in limitation or freedom and what they believe is what they will experience. Charles writes against the libertarian ideal of individual autonomy, even going as far as writing that it does not exist, as a metaphysical principle. I countered his assertions so as to remind people that they have a choice to believe otherwise, as a metaphysical principle. Society can organize around the principles of freedom and autonomy rather than limitation and dependency.
so long as we exist in the material realm, ie. alive, we are dependent on others. this idea of oneness bypasses the reality of duality so long as I have a body...
Outstanding comment!
Clearly coming from one who Knows.
Bravo.
Very thoughtful article. We are truly lacking a national debate on this society changing shift to CBDC and the real pros and cons.
It sometimes seems that the elites not only do not want a public debate, they are actively pushing against it. Via distraction narrative to keep the masses busy. (Oscars awards anyone?).
And via creating crisis-response to force in their desired end results measures without debate. The covid manidatory Digital ID was one such move that could have been used as a foundation of CBDC.
"Let us not speak, then, of freedom from social constraint. Let us ask instead how we should be constrained, and by whom. To whom should we be accountable, to whom should we be in debt, on whom should we depend in our neediness?"
I'd prefer to make all decisions about who I depend on myself. thanks. Everyone from state to nosy individual neighbors who have other ideas about how this should work can fuck right off :)
I think the key there is the part about depending on others. In a free society, one should indeed be largely free in the choice of who to depend on ... but no matter what, one will be dependent on others for virtually everything. Then again, one doesn't always have such freedom - for example, one can't always choose one's neighbors, but must in any case find a way to get along with them.
I guess what I didn't like about it was the implication (via "we" language) that choices about dependence should be collective decisions. As for modern neighbors, the mostly get along with each other by not interacting at all, which ironically is largely due to (IMO largely illegitimate) collective decision making about how e.g. social safety nets should work being made elsewhere.
Good Lord, BLK. CE made that statement in this post? Guess I never got that far. My eyes glazed over & I got a brain-freeze slurpee headache pretty quick on this one.
I mean, that just chills the bones doesn't it? The banality of Charles Eisenstein painting submission to authority as a loving attitude of dutiful service aligned with acknowledgment of our interdependence. Holy Sheep-dip, Batman. Chairman Mao would've been proud to have included this in his little red book.
Meet the new boss! Same as the old boss! Gee, Charles! You really are a forward-thinker!
(Oh well. At least you've chosen a side.)
It's interesting to consider the very very wealthy in relation of CBDC's. Such people rarely hold money; rather they have (and exchange) assets. Many of these people often have nothing in their pockets - no loose change, no wallet, no credit card - their purchases are performed by others.
The rest of us, as economic actors, operate almost exclusively with money. If CBDC's replace money, how easy it will be to control and coerce us; but how easy it will also be for the very wealthy to avoid such sanctions. What a coincidence.
Very good! In my childhood back in 1960's I lived in the still intact, small farm, small town agrarian part of the Midwest in Wisconsin, a direct descendent in fact of the world pictured in the Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series you mentioned in your essay. The positive social constraints on behavior were strongly in evidence insuring civility and honesty. It was an ordered ecosystem with the base components being the family units, local small businesses - even the banks, and small farms, organized in rural townships, towns and counties each with real self governing powers. Civic organizations, churches, volunteer groups - like volunteer fire fighters, I remember my high school history teacher hurriedly leaving class when the village fire whistle blew., informal neighborly help - my dad getting help getting the hay in before it rained, larger family networks within families that had been around for generations. My ancestors arrived in the Midwest in the 1850's and built this agrarian culture, the economics being favorable to the project. Economic forces starting in the 70's destroyed the base of small farms and small businesses. How to rebuild something like this in the face of countervailing economic forces is a conundrum!
There is no one thinking about the truly vital issues of today (& tomorrow) with more clarity and insight than you, Charles. Not even close.
Thank you.
"The wealthy would suffer social pressure if they were too ostentatious or failed to uphold civic responsibilities."That is quite a statement. One must ignore facts to think social pressure would have any power to influence the wealthy. Manufacturing Consent by Herman and Chomsky reports serious and broad research results that totally disprove that quote. The wealthy are insulated from the civic pressure. In fact, they use the hoarded wealth to secure their wealth by manipulating the civic members. Also, civic pressure it something that is becoming more unlikely all the time. The glimmers of civic competence that have been happening are still far to insufficient to be social pressure that has any hope of making changes.
We live in a time of great moral corruption. Pedophiles are running the world and preventing civic minded people from doing anything about it, even preventing them from detecting it. It will not work. There are forces involved and people who realize what is happening. The terrible consequences of nationalism, central power, hording, and global population control (with reduction agenda) by influence are forcing some eyes open. The brave who take action are the only hope we have. Civic responsibility has never worked. Not in all of history. It has had little effect when there was any at all. Then it was short lived. The ways of people who do bad things is with us still. It includes ignoring ones civic duty and those who do nothing.
Charles has some brilliant ideas. His work learning human ways is too idealistic. Somehow, as is the case with many, he does not realize the full extent of evil within some. All men are not angles. Some have incredible power obtained because we nurture a monetary system. They create economics and manipulate it to their advantage and to express some very evil personal traits. The idea that there is some power in civic life that will protect us is invalid. We are almost completely powerless.
Not one single person was asked to be a participant in any of our forms of government or most, if not all, of our social systems. That includes the one that gave us the money systems. It doesn't matter how history brought it to the world. What matters is what we want to do and will do about it. The human species is one people working constantly in systems we did not create or were even asked to participate in. Lysander Spooner wrote No Treason: The Constitution of no Authority. Like me, he does not approve of being born into the culture and being forced to abide by its rules, laws, and ways. The Constitution bound only those who were offered the opportunity to agree to accept it by majority vote. Even so, there were many who saw it as a defeat of the rebellion that created this nation.
We are subjects. Nothing more. We must comply or face consequences that can be death. That is not liberty. The governments must be brought to the people at intervals that make them an agreement of the people. There is no agreement. There has been no agreement in the history of the world. It has always been the powerful subjugating the others. We need an agreement. It can still happen.
With modern technology, a global agreement can come at last. It will, if permitted, be egalitarian. All will have the same access to the products of society. The productive capacity of mankind, Earth, and the Universe is far more than everyone could even want. Instead, we have so much wast the wealthy are able to have unlimited access to the products of society while nearly everyone else is limited. Banking is like granting bankers unrestricted access to the products of society for digging ditches and filling them back in over and over. Creating military forces and deploying them is beyond waste. It is evil altogether, and so many people think it is simply the organic byproduct of fallible mankind. It is not. It is the product of some who want to do evil things. Being fallible is one thing; being evil is another. Evil people delight in torture, rape, and murder of little children. We all know evidence has surfaced implicating some of the most powerful people in the world. It got suppressed so quickly and effective countered it was a little spark instead of a growing flame of purification. That alone demonstrates the power of evil over the population.
The get into the mind. They force the mind to obey, even to reason as directed. Two plus two is five and defended. Fallible people are susceptible to faulty logic. Receptive minds receive whatever is available. The choices are so thoroughly selected and controlled, few are making choice outside those being presented. People say, "think outside the box" as if it something they can do. If only they really could. The indoctrination and conditioning of children is too effective for that to be possible until something is done to change it. That would mean the end of money altogether.
No better from of money will protect people from the people who have no morals, ethics, feelings, or restraints. Those people will always find a way to corner the money. It is simply too easy to do to resist. But money doesn't have to exist in any form at all. The only reason for money is to discriminate access to the products of society. It doesn't exist as a convenience. It doesn't exist to buy things. It exist to prevent buying. Have you never been able to buy because you don't have enough money or credit?
Charles say, "Merchants were much more likely to accept the IOUs of people of “good account” than they were of the town drunkard." Sounds like logic, doesn't it. Only by ignoring other facts and logic is that possibly logic. It assumes too much and leaves out too much. It says the town drunk is simply another case of human fallibility expressing. It say nothing about the cause of that form of failure. People are the result of living. They come helplessly and nearly blank. Living shapes them more thoroughly than a sculptor can shape clay. Living in an imposed social system thought to be an agreement of its members in which money has segregated people into haves and havenots produced town drunks and countless other such things. In a world of humans living as family organism, as Charles says, will shape people to be angles. In a world that offers all the products of the people to all the people according to their own desires and need as they fell them will shape the malleable humans into angles such as have not yet been conceived. It will be a process. It takes time. Now is the time, before it is too late. It will root out the evil like Charles thinks it already does.
I respect and admire Charles. His ideas are absolutely brilliant. I expect he will either evolve or not. I have written to him many times without reply trying to get him to think of a world that has no form of money at all, just people loving one another like the family we are and sharing everything. There is no place for money when the products of society are the products of the human family. The improvements in life will be heavenly. The beauty of mankind needs an avenue of expression and reinforcement. Evil will pass into the darkness of human history. The laws of nature will respond. From the other planes wonders will come. Now is the time. Too many horrors are building momentum. We need but agree on something that works. I see it as a loving mankind working to care for everyone. Imagine the evolution of Love in such a world.
Long-winded, useless hand-wringing. "Peoples' referendum"? Seriously? The FRB is a private corporation owned predominantly by foreign banking families, all of whom essentially own the USA. US citizens can no more effect FRB policy than can slaves whip their masters. Single global digital currency is well on its' way folks. Money itself is ingeniously engineered criminal activity. Money launderers are not the bad guys-- they are pesky competition. If the paper note is not redeemable into a fixed quantity of intrinsic value, buyer and seller have an invisible thief present at every transaction.
Biggest blood-sucking scam every perpetrated on humanity. Very simple to understand. That it works at all is an illusion of belief indicating a worldwide population of deluded fools. Every wealthy person knows its' all a racket and the only way to prevent ones' wealth being sucked dry in perpetuity is to emulate the parasitic behavior of the gangsters running the scam.
Jesus, Charles-- still talking as if all this is unconscious, misguided, well-intended slapping ourselves in the face? As if the "democratic process" can overpower big money? Those days splattered all over our streets way back when, along with the brains of JFK.
You disempower your readers and white-wash the wicked. You bury simple, glaringly evident realities in cold, brilliantly executed, complex intellectual blizzards that reveal nothing new at all and obscure everything that an individual soul-seeker might need to free their mind and survive all this with deeper humanity intact.
what would you recommend Edgar?
How about total destruction of personal identity/the imagined self? This will result in joyous exhumation of the moribund natural spirit within and free the soul to shine real light into our choked & gasping human social realm. In other words, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's Jessica.
What's going on in the world "out there", socio-political-economic-whatever is well-advanced frothing madness based on the lie "superior/inferior being"-- that "people in charge" are special, worthy to decide for the rest of us the course human activity will take.
There is no solution, no remedy, no fixing that which is from the start ill-conceived, diseased, born of fear, dread and suspicion resulting in pathological desire to watch over and control every aspect of the lives of ones' fellow man.
Nothing healthy comes from force wielded by deadly power. Don't even dream any of this can be fixed. Imagine trying to start a peoples' movement to revamp Hitlers' Reich or, heck, even reform the tiny family of Charlie Manson while Charlie is standing right there. It can't be done. Not without you turning yourself into Chuckie or Adolf. Belief in rule is itself a symptom of profound, deep-seated, paranoid mental illness. It is fear, dread & hatred of ones' fellow man-- never mind its' banal appearance, or that it isn't sick if "everyone is doing it."
Fix instead whatever it is within you that still believes that mankind can thrive under any system of forced rule at all.
"Until people hold the power of love over love of power, the world will never know peace" -- Jimi Hendrix
Edgar Allen Poe, that's some name you have chosen. I am aligned with your ideas and observations. I am very optimistic, though. I see the way ahead. I took it long ago. But that only resulted in my presence there. On a planet that supports billions of people and countless other forms of life, that is not enough. The way ahead for everyone requires at least nearly everyone.
While the momentum barrelling toward total destruction rages on, opportunity reveals itself. The generations of human effort has provided us with that opportunity. The social systems we were born into have only been modified slightly to serve those who derive the most from them. That has always been the way. But there is an a side effect. Maybe it was accidental, but it doesn't matter. The billions are now able to communicate, and virtually instantly, in real time. We want peace and prosperity along with all that fulfills us. We want the world that provides for us to keep doing so. That is now something the ruling class sees as vital to them. That is the opportunity. "The basic idea of symbiotic transformation is that advances in bottom-up social empowerment within a capitalist society will be most stable and defendable when such social empowerment also helps solve certain real problems faced by the capitalists and other elites." Erik Olen Wright in Envisioning Real Utopias.
People are too over-specialized or too ignorant. There is a very large group of people who are not capable of much, and that includes producing a living for themselves on their own. Dependencies on society are huge. But that's okay in an egalitarian society. Though it is far below what it should be, society is providing. It is providing far too much and that damages the capitalist systems. If taken too far, it destroys them. All that is necessary at this time is to remove the monetary system completely, maybe in stages. Money is the control used to keep the obsolete monetary systems operating to advantage the few. Waste became a primary method used to counter over-abundance. Military and war nonsense is one of the big ones, but there are many nearly as big. All operate by the implementation of the monetary system upon the people. The people create value. The ruling class take it and dispense it as they want back to the people. Stop taking money and stop charging money. The systems will morph and improve.
Company just arrived. I have to go.
i don't trust someone that says Never, Nothing, All or Always... nor those bent on attacking and belittling.
- Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
Hi Adam-- then by that statement you do not trust people who imagine power over you. You are on the right track, sir. Certainly these folks have made it their lifes' purpose to attack and belittle you & I and everyone else not on their direct payroll.
It is not my intent to attack or belittle CE personally, as some might assume. I do believe he is a good-hearted, well-intended chap, as are most who elevate themselves to standing on soapboxes. My only intent is to kick it out from under him using simple truths observable to anyone whenever he floats off in support of long-dead & stinking paradigms. Humans must keep moving to stay healthy and it should be glaringly obvious by now that this sh*t doesn't work, has never worked, nor will it ever. We either let all this fall apart or lose our humanity altogether. Humans are about to be outlawed.
If it were mere opinion, the things I say, then why should anyone be moved to rush over in defense of Charles' words? Why the need to dust him off, prop him back up onto the soapbox then attempt to deliver me a spanking?
My words are not for everyone. My words sting only those who live in created dreamworlds inside their head. My words are for the fearless, the honest, the defeated, whose hearts are sick to death of being sold worthless garbage and force-fed muck that clogs their veins & fogs their brains. My words are for anyone here alive and kicking enough to smell the suited & tied rats lording their ugly gun-trash over us all, stealing our minds, our energy, our creativity, our very souls.
My words require no belief, no trust. One need only put the phone away & take a look around. See the sun that fires all of life, feel it warm your bones. I didn't make it, I am just showing it to you. The sun says "the emperor has no clothes".
Charles Eisenstein still thinks he does. You tell me what you see, Adam. Are our purveyors of "currency" (FRB) just benign fellow humans whose policies are worthy of in-depth intellectual analysis because they are capable & trustworthy leaders whose minds are open to warm-hearted guidance from us caring, loving human beings? Or are they simply the blood-sucking parasites that their diabolically concocted schemes reveal them to be?
my reply is that without faith nor a longview you are right.
Dear Edgar, much I can agree with you here and I do wish Charles although he tries a bit would reveal some of these basic assumptions you imply. What to do with the rage. Notice he slips in the now accept reparations for....slavery one assumes. In a system that has exploited too many. Remember the 1%?
I have watched Charles grow HIS community and that has taken a lot of privelege in my view and actually down right sycophancy. I was pushed, hard to join his anti vax crusade.
Personally I am interested in "functional democracy" and I am with you that some clean up and differentiation may be required. I too am basically anti crypto. This shift will be a plague of another kind. And again I get Charles as hugely IDEALISTIC and he has admitted to naivete in the past. Thanks for questioning authority like this and its smooth delivery.
I see boolean both/and logic as best and we still get absolutist binary either or proclamations, not suggestions. I do believe community control has to occur at some level. Hang in brother. You are not alone...how about reparations for all the exploited and differently abled?
Of course the powers that be and that in our case I believe is the WEF currently willl enact its great plan . Creating scenarios that allow their realities to emerge. I’m not sure that being awake can stop the digital currencies or domee were of their other plans for us .However , how , we liive in a cashless or cash determined society will be our choice . I have a personal objection to Deliveroo and other things like it, In my observation it takes more than it can give for those who have to do it , the choice to use iit is taking away more than you imagine , through “ comfort” For me it is based on the principle that it proposes convenience to us , convenience will be the killer blue as I see it - “ you will own nothing and be happy …etc”
That’s where I believe the choices of the future will matter . Systems of community living such as “ the community oven “ , exchanging services . Methods of living adopted in much poorer countries can teach us many things long forgotten in our Western havens . I would think things like this are a method of protest for the future as well the hope of direct protest against these changes that may come by stealth . I applaud your detailed presentation of economics Charles, and I want to understand more again knowledge is the beginning of intelligent objection , please write more on this .
mene mene tekel upharsin.
How about reparations for all the old women living in their cars....? Spiritual development is a life long journey.
A great article, as always. However, it is incorrect to note that 'if you can pay for everything, you don’t need anyone'. Certainly, you aren't embedded in belonging, community and trust. However, being able to pay for services makes you more, not less, dependent on others who provide such services. The richest people are the most infantalized. Some of them can't even cook, launder or drive themselves around.
Not being able to cook, etc. just means they're so rich they don't even need themselves :D The money does it all for them. Of course, the money does need everyone else to accomplish anything, but I imagine it's easy to pretend otherwise beyond a certain point.
I'm really shocked, Charles, that you would write so positively of Celo and other social impact "for good" blockchains - in an otherwise excellent article. Have you read much of Allison McDowell? I think her analysis of impact investing is right on. I believe those engaging in this space (blockchain currencies and esp. those "for good" - ie. impact) are just (in some cases unwittingly) furthering the globalist totalitarian agenda of exploitation and domination by normalizing the tools, building the infrastructure, and confusing people. This article also explains more: https://thefeistyadelie.com/2022/03/04/the-new-surveillance-capitalism/
We need a rational debate for sure it’s a paradox of agency and agency of control . How will we decide , which is our right within the tenets of freedom , how will we decide when the control is so effective , they know our biology and not just our pockets