Hello readers. It has been some ten years since I’ve written extensively on economic topics. I intend to revisit them in 2022, because they are starting to loom large in people’s consciousness. They will likely loom larger still in the coming year, as we face the prospect of significant economic turmoil.
In the 1980s through the late 1990s, my work was about “creating an economy for the living Earth”. I had 2 books published: Economics as if the Earth Really Mattered, and Invested in the Common Good. Both New Society Publishers, both with forewards by Thomas Berry, numerous articles, and I also worked on projects like community currency, corporate research looking into Earth destroyers (before computer data bases), fighting for the ancient forests in the Pacific Northwest and the tropics, educating people about genetic engineering, food irradiation, etc. etc.
I’m not an economist and had taken no courses either, but I looked to the Earth to create what I called Gaian Economics - one of the first people to use that term. It was all about, ultimately, local/regional (bioregional), grassroots, appropriate scale . . . To me, the most important thing is to integrate the reality of Earth into our economics. Not just in the sense of “resources” - which are, in truth, “gifts of nature” and not commodities or “things” to be extracted and somehow “valued” monetarily, as some are wanting to see happen as a way of, finally, integrating “resource” extraction and the resulting destruction, into the bottom line rather than treating them as externalities as is the current practice. I get why people want to do this, or think it’s a good idea (or at least a step in the right direction) but we cannot put a $ value on Life and Consciousness. All the money in the world cannot bring back extinct species or restore to their original conditions the places we have mined and clear cut and poisoned.
Right now what I see a lot of people struggling with is how to deal with/break up/bring down the current corporate controlled, global, market-based, extractive, etc. economic system. It seems to me that most feel transforming it is the key. Well, maybe it is, but we get stuck at that level because it has so much power and is controlled and maintained by greed, power-over - and this includes the so called “green new deal” stuff, the “great reset” - all that. While we need to transform energy, agriculture, education, infrastructure, all that, the solutions we need are not large scale, top down, billionaire controlled. So I feel we need to let that be for now and work where we live with those who live near and around us to recreate our economies from the bottom up, in ways that fit local places and human and nonhuman needs. There are ways to do this, processes people in communities can use to create plans and strategies to get there.
To me, the missing piece from pretty much all the discussions I’ve read recently on this subject, is the fact that Earth is Alive. Not just as a living system, but conscious, sentient - from the smallest microbe to fungi and glacial erratics and worms and trees and mountains . . . We are actually living within a living being as the cells of our body live within us. All of these modes of consciousness are part of the web we work and live within and all this wisdom and intelligence has a huge role to play that most people simply ignore if they are even aware of it. Yes, we talk about ecology and “healing Earth” and restoration, etc. but as if we are somehow doing it unto. When in fact we are doing it “with”. I hope this reality is part of what you will be sharing on this subject.
I, too, decided not to focus any more of my energy on the economy, yet I seem to be drawn into more and more conversations because of this very important issue, what to me is the actual foundation of the work that needs to be done, not something to add in at the end or mention in passing.
'How may I be of good use to you?' What a lovely invitation. Help me figure out how I may be of good use to others in these collapsing times. I want to serve. Something like that...
I’m super excited about this series. Been having a lot of conversation around economics lately, for the last 5 years that I’ve been “in business” and really since childhood, as I was raised in an open-discussion type family who basically discussed religion and politics (and economics, consequentially lol) at the dinner table, without any attempt to avoid the drama!
Currently I am seeking wisdom and advice on how to ethically operate business (or really just make money) in this culture, not from the classic standpoint of doing everything right by hipster standards, but just in dealing with money at all. I’ve got folks sharing opinions on all ends of the money-is-good/evil spectrum and it’s confusing. I’m not interested in binary positioning over much of anything any more. What matters is what’s practical, realistic and accessible, right here and now - and blending that with awareness of the more beautiful world we could breathe back into life, which is why I appreciate your work so much!
To get practical, I just entered a special contract with my sister to buy her old house which has positioned me perfectly down the road from my parents and other family and friends I’d been longing to be closer to, and I now have a tiny patch of land, in the woods, to tend and grow. But it’s a house, it’s monthky payments and huge utility bills and saving funds for large repairs. And it’s property and school tax, ontop of income tax (which I’m now reporting more heavily so I can get a mortgage eventually lol) - all huge new financial responsibilities that many folks balk at, or look down on me for, and many other folks congratulate me for lol (isn’t being human fun) but I’m grateful just to be here, with an artesian well and clean water running from my tap for the first time since I left home, which saves me fossil fuels from monthly spring water pick ups.
At almost 40 years old I’m ready for this kind of physical stability after living nearly 20 years in communal tight spots (as you’ve seen several times lol) which had other hidden costs emotionally, and otherwise. I don’t think my communal living days are over (currently we’re renting 3 of our 4 bedrooms out on airbnb to long term guests lol) as I still dream about building a one room cabin in the woods on a local farm with friends lol, but for now this is it and I am obligated to family and government to make more money than I’ve ever needed before, and it’s hurting. It’s a big new place for me, and it’s hard to figure out what to do that doesn’t conflict with my soul.
Everyone I want to serve and spend time with is relatively low income so I can’t just “know my value and charge higher rates” and nor do I even agree with that line of thinking (I’m worth infinite value lol) so… all this to say, I think there’s a lot of folks in my position with shared frustrations and values and I’d love to grow in my awareness of how to live in this new world!
Until now I always kept my expenses super low so I wasn’t under such pressure to extract money from everyone around me, or from an employer who could afford to pay me well but likely wasn’t doing work that mattered to me (which seems like the two options lol). But now things are way different. It’s even more intertwined with my core relationships. For instance, my “mortgage agreement” is with my sister (I couldn’t have qualified to buy a house otherwise) so I’m not interested in screwing her over like I’d consider doing to a bank! Lol.
How do we participate in a corrupt monetary system just enough to be responsible to our financial obligations, without crushing our soul in the chase for higher income? What are some acceptable mechanisms?
It is my understanding that the mechanism of blame (which is rooted in the oldest hatred- Anti-Semitism- an oppression which is the blueprint for many other oppressions) has for centuries been used to divert the rage of the working people away from those in power so that when the workers become dissatisfied with their living/working conditions and they revolt, their rage is directed to a scapegoat (historically the Jews, now many groups), instead of at the source of the difficulty (those in power), so that the legitimate upset never achieves lasting change. Workers revolt, Jews (and now others) are blamed, wash, rinse, repeat, and the structure of power never changes. First, how do we make this mechanism visible so that it can be dismantled? Second, how do you/we achieve accountability without blame (so that there can be real, lasting change)? Third, how do you achieve a broad base of unity needed to advocate for change when the mecahnism of blame (often in the form of anti-Semitism) is frequently used to divide political movements (think of what happened with the women's march after Trump was elected as one example)? Fourth, how do you achieve authentic unity without the authoritatian tendencies emerging as we have seen on the left with the Covid lock-downs, vax mandates, vax passports etc... when "the common good" becomes co-opted for authoritarian or totalitarian purposes? I suspect your answer(s) will include not using force or control in the approach, which is also a shift away from the mindset of domination, which has pervaded human relations with each other and with the planet for thousands of years, so I guess my last question (for now!) is if inter-being is the path forward how can it be more powerful than domination when domination has rendered it almost invisible all of this time? What has changed? What opening exists now to manifest that path that hasn't existed before? Or is it that the opening was always there but the incentive (ecological destabilization, economic collapse, etc...) has increased past a certain threshold making something possible now that was not before? I am deeply interested in how to shift from an economy of extraction to an economy of regeneration. I'm interested to know if it's possible to base an economy on carbon sequestration (in trees, buildings, etc...) which is not the same as cap and trade. If you want more currency, you need to retain and grow more trees. I wonder what you think about that concept.
This feels very timely. Thank you. I have been exploring agency and unity consciousness recently. How to flow in my activism when I am 'not in agreement' Am I 'othering' when I am not in agreement. I loved a recent newsletter by Dr Zach Bush about 'resolution through reverence' and it was beautifully aligned with NAAS. Can I be 'not in agreement' from a space of reverence. I am finding this a fruitful enquiry. Then I am interested in how your writing will support the clarity I am seeking to respond personally into a system that feels complex and at times triggers fear in me.
Sounds like essays I will look forward to reading. The illustration at the beginning of this one caught my attention. Will we ALL be able, some day, to sit and eat together as a large community?
Hi Charles - I’d like to see the deep influence of religion in your economic series, especially the pathology of “the love of money is the root of all evil” and Christ’s example of “ leave your families and give away all that you have to the poor” So many have grown up in fundamentalist Christian American churches who taught modesty, tithing and a deep suspicion (and yet, at times, a secret love) of money - and are still subconsciously controlled as adults by the schizophrenia of having money and yet fearing money/displeasing God by having too much - whether they flex or not.
Charles, I woke up to find your offering this morning and it met my heart's calling at such a precise, beautiful place of synchronicity that I simply had to write to say THANK YOU! All that you've shared thus far finds deep resonance and excitement in me. I well remember your early days of writing about Sacred Economics. And now, a decade later, you are revisiting from an even 'higher' order of wholeness (or at least it seems so to me.) I am so longing for this conversation!! I want to meet around a fire and discuss all of this with people finding and falling in love with each other so much that we blur and eliminate the lines between giving and receiving. I sense that this offering of yours will guide us towards new ways of realizing what we truly value and allow us to move forward ("right action") towards the more beautiful world...
I love the question "how may I be of good use to you?"
- First off, I sense it needs to be reciprocal, yes? Can we be of good use to you (and each other) as well? I'd love to sense into this as a collective.
- What feels so essential to me is the question of how economic choices impact community -- what creates the "tragedy of the commons" and what promotes prosocial, regenerative connections? In our hearts, I sense a deep longing for new answers about how we form strong communities that can withstand the winds of change that we both desire and yet fear.
- Could you/we please discuss what Elinor Ostrom delineated as the "eight core design principles" of sustainable communities? Her work, along with David Sloan Wilson, seems like a great place to start re-envisioning what's possible.
- Looking at key stories are something you do so well. I/we look forward to delving deeply into these, especially the archetypes, myths and cultural wisdom about money and exchange (eg Bernard Lietaer's work)
- Also, I/we may be able to add some benefit looking into the trauma surrounding money to unravel some of the reasons we often move back into ways that do not serve us (eg, my work on Money and Trauma with the Thomas Hubl community exploring collective trauma.)
- Lastly, my heart is longing to take the next step of envisioning a new future by doing the imaginal work you brought forward in the last chapter of The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible. I suspect we can come together to do much of this work through play, perhaps using role-playing games and imaginal connections with ALL that is wanting to serve humanity's leap forward right now (eg, Nature, Indigenous Wisdom, the Infinite).
Thank you, Charles -- I/we all need avenues towards hope and trust right now... Much love
I'm glad your tackling this Charles. I've long been thinking that we need a new and better economic system. Sacred Economics laid the groundwork for that, but I'm curious to see how you will build on that. Growth and acquisition of capital as aims for economic activity clearly have some serious flaws. Do we toss at the whole system, as the Marxists would have us do, or reform it, as Progressives would have us do? Or is there a third way? I believe that we need to replace the desire for growth and material security with a system based on values. Economics that don't reflect those values should be disposed of in a toxic waste disposal. These values have to do with the appreciation for all human life, for all other humans and for furthering the development of other humans on the spiritual value plane. We have been overly focussed in the history of civilization on material acquisitions, satisfying our appetites, and improving security and power. We need to move away from these and create a system that can enable everyone to flourish, but in different ways. Material acquisition needs to be demoted to its proper place, and replaced with higher values. The question I find hard to answer is how? Possibly you will have other ideas and possible answers to some of these questions. I look forward to your next article.
As a parent of 3 in America, with 2 in college and 1 in high school, I am deeply concerned about the economic prospects of young adults today. I hope that you will provide some hope that I can share with them, it's pretty bleak when we talk politics and finances at the dinner table lately. My father is a baby boomer and he lives with us. He is an intelligent man but he simply cannot wrap his head around the reality these kids are facing, or maybe he just refuses to accept it. It would be great to gain some tools to help bridge the gap. Thanks Charles!
Yes, please Charles. As a 68 year old in Britain today I am feeling increasingly alienated from society. I remember a time when people could afford to buy a home (before property was viewed as an investment) and it only took one wage earner in the family to bring in enough money for a comfortable life. The 'convenience' that the public seems to value (without thinking of the consequences) when using plastic instead of cash will inevitably lead to centralised digital currency and complete control.
1. that the global economy makes us not need each other in concrete ways (our goods and services mostly come from strangers/impersonal institutions and our gifts mostly go to such if we're lucky, and usually remain unexpressed)
2. that the global economy mostly makes us not need the other creatures of nature except in cold utilitarian ways because they are far away from us, not interacting directly with us for mutual benefit
3. that the global economy makes the feedback from actions to consequences in production and use of goods and services too slow, too abstract (far away in space and time) and too noisy (I can't tell what my impact is because it's mixed in with all these other people's/corporations impacts)?
I’m really interested in how to transform healthcare from disease management and dependency to true healthcare when so many have become so out of touch with health, don’t know how to heal themselves, and are dependent on medical interventions. There are not enough traditional, integrative, alternative healers or mind-body practitioners around for the shift required.
Your insights are much needed and appreciated, Charles. I am interested in how to foster the transformative type of resilience in organisations. how to create the small and beautiful and local enterprises (especially when faced by the big and monstrous and global corporates). and how do we focus on local but also remain global. Looking forward to the essays! Big love from the Regenerative Economics students here at Schumacher College :-)
In the 1980s through the late 1990s, my work was about “creating an economy for the living Earth”. I had 2 books published: Economics as if the Earth Really Mattered, and Invested in the Common Good. Both New Society Publishers, both with forewards by Thomas Berry, numerous articles, and I also worked on projects like community currency, corporate research looking into Earth destroyers (before computer data bases), fighting for the ancient forests in the Pacific Northwest and the tropics, educating people about genetic engineering, food irradiation, etc. etc.
I’m not an economist and had taken no courses either, but I looked to the Earth to create what I called Gaian Economics - one of the first people to use that term. It was all about, ultimately, local/regional (bioregional), grassroots, appropriate scale . . . To me, the most important thing is to integrate the reality of Earth into our economics. Not just in the sense of “resources” - which are, in truth, “gifts of nature” and not commodities or “things” to be extracted and somehow “valued” monetarily, as some are wanting to see happen as a way of, finally, integrating “resource” extraction and the resulting destruction, into the bottom line rather than treating them as externalities as is the current practice. I get why people want to do this, or think it’s a good idea (or at least a step in the right direction) but we cannot put a $ value on Life and Consciousness. All the money in the world cannot bring back extinct species or restore to their original conditions the places we have mined and clear cut and poisoned.
Right now what I see a lot of people struggling with is how to deal with/break up/bring down the current corporate controlled, global, market-based, extractive, etc. economic system. It seems to me that most feel transforming it is the key. Well, maybe it is, but we get stuck at that level because it has so much power and is controlled and maintained by greed, power-over - and this includes the so called “green new deal” stuff, the “great reset” - all that. While we need to transform energy, agriculture, education, infrastructure, all that, the solutions we need are not large scale, top down, billionaire controlled. So I feel we need to let that be for now and work where we live with those who live near and around us to recreate our economies from the bottom up, in ways that fit local places and human and nonhuman needs. There are ways to do this, processes people in communities can use to create plans and strategies to get there.
To me, the missing piece from pretty much all the discussions I’ve read recently on this subject, is the fact that Earth is Alive. Not just as a living system, but conscious, sentient - from the smallest microbe to fungi and glacial erratics and worms and trees and mountains . . . We are actually living within a living being as the cells of our body live within us. All of these modes of consciousness are part of the web we work and live within and all this wisdom and intelligence has a huge role to play that most people simply ignore if they are even aware of it. Yes, we talk about ecology and “healing Earth” and restoration, etc. but as if we are somehow doing it unto. When in fact we are doing it “with”. I hope this reality is part of what you will be sharing on this subject.
I, too, decided not to focus any more of my energy on the economy, yet I seem to be drawn into more and more conversations because of this very important issue, what to me is the actual foundation of the work that needs to be done, not something to add in at the end or mention in passing.
'How may I be of good use to you?' What a lovely invitation. Help me figure out how I may be of good use to others in these collapsing times. I want to serve. Something like that...
I’m super excited about this series. Been having a lot of conversation around economics lately, for the last 5 years that I’ve been “in business” and really since childhood, as I was raised in an open-discussion type family who basically discussed religion and politics (and economics, consequentially lol) at the dinner table, without any attempt to avoid the drama!
Currently I am seeking wisdom and advice on how to ethically operate business (or really just make money) in this culture, not from the classic standpoint of doing everything right by hipster standards, but just in dealing with money at all. I’ve got folks sharing opinions on all ends of the money-is-good/evil spectrum and it’s confusing. I’m not interested in binary positioning over much of anything any more. What matters is what’s practical, realistic and accessible, right here and now - and blending that with awareness of the more beautiful world we could breathe back into life, which is why I appreciate your work so much!
To get practical, I just entered a special contract with my sister to buy her old house which has positioned me perfectly down the road from my parents and other family and friends I’d been longing to be closer to, and I now have a tiny patch of land, in the woods, to tend and grow. But it’s a house, it’s monthky payments and huge utility bills and saving funds for large repairs. And it’s property and school tax, ontop of income tax (which I’m now reporting more heavily so I can get a mortgage eventually lol) - all huge new financial responsibilities that many folks balk at, or look down on me for, and many other folks congratulate me for lol (isn’t being human fun) but I’m grateful just to be here, with an artesian well and clean water running from my tap for the first time since I left home, which saves me fossil fuels from monthly spring water pick ups.
At almost 40 years old I’m ready for this kind of physical stability after living nearly 20 years in communal tight spots (as you’ve seen several times lol) which had other hidden costs emotionally, and otherwise. I don’t think my communal living days are over (currently we’re renting 3 of our 4 bedrooms out on airbnb to long term guests lol) as I still dream about building a one room cabin in the woods on a local farm with friends lol, but for now this is it and I am obligated to family and government to make more money than I’ve ever needed before, and it’s hurting. It’s a big new place for me, and it’s hard to figure out what to do that doesn’t conflict with my soul.
Everyone I want to serve and spend time with is relatively low income so I can’t just “know my value and charge higher rates” and nor do I even agree with that line of thinking (I’m worth infinite value lol) so… all this to say, I think there’s a lot of folks in my position with shared frustrations and values and I’d love to grow in my awareness of how to live in this new world!
Until now I always kept my expenses super low so I wasn’t under such pressure to extract money from everyone around me, or from an employer who could afford to pay me well but likely wasn’t doing work that mattered to me (which seems like the two options lol). But now things are way different. It’s even more intertwined with my core relationships. For instance, my “mortgage agreement” is with my sister (I couldn’t have qualified to buy a house otherwise) so I’m not interested in screwing her over like I’d consider doing to a bank! Lol.
How do we participate in a corrupt monetary system just enough to be responsible to our financial obligations, without crushing our soul in the chase for higher income? What are some acceptable mechanisms?
It is my understanding that the mechanism of blame (which is rooted in the oldest hatred- Anti-Semitism- an oppression which is the blueprint for many other oppressions) has for centuries been used to divert the rage of the working people away from those in power so that when the workers become dissatisfied with their living/working conditions and they revolt, their rage is directed to a scapegoat (historically the Jews, now many groups), instead of at the source of the difficulty (those in power), so that the legitimate upset never achieves lasting change. Workers revolt, Jews (and now others) are blamed, wash, rinse, repeat, and the structure of power never changes. First, how do we make this mechanism visible so that it can be dismantled? Second, how do you/we achieve accountability without blame (so that there can be real, lasting change)? Third, how do you achieve a broad base of unity needed to advocate for change when the mecahnism of blame (often in the form of anti-Semitism) is frequently used to divide political movements (think of what happened with the women's march after Trump was elected as one example)? Fourth, how do you achieve authentic unity without the authoritatian tendencies emerging as we have seen on the left with the Covid lock-downs, vax mandates, vax passports etc... when "the common good" becomes co-opted for authoritarian or totalitarian purposes? I suspect your answer(s) will include not using force or control in the approach, which is also a shift away from the mindset of domination, which has pervaded human relations with each other and with the planet for thousands of years, so I guess my last question (for now!) is if inter-being is the path forward how can it be more powerful than domination when domination has rendered it almost invisible all of this time? What has changed? What opening exists now to manifest that path that hasn't existed before? Or is it that the opening was always there but the incentive (ecological destabilization, economic collapse, etc...) has increased past a certain threshold making something possible now that was not before? I am deeply interested in how to shift from an economy of extraction to an economy of regeneration. I'm interested to know if it's possible to base an economy on carbon sequestration (in trees, buildings, etc...) which is not the same as cap and trade. If you want more currency, you need to retain and grow more trees. I wonder what you think about that concept.
This feels very timely. Thank you. I have been exploring agency and unity consciousness recently. How to flow in my activism when I am 'not in agreement' Am I 'othering' when I am not in agreement. I loved a recent newsletter by Dr Zach Bush about 'resolution through reverence' and it was beautifully aligned with NAAS. Can I be 'not in agreement' from a space of reverence. I am finding this a fruitful enquiry. Then I am interested in how your writing will support the clarity I am seeking to respond personally into a system that feels complex and at times triggers fear in me.
Sounds like essays I will look forward to reading. The illustration at the beginning of this one caught my attention. Will we ALL be able, some day, to sit and eat together as a large community?
Hi Charles - I’d like to see the deep influence of religion in your economic series, especially the pathology of “the love of money is the root of all evil” and Christ’s example of “ leave your families and give away all that you have to the poor” So many have grown up in fundamentalist Christian American churches who taught modesty, tithing and a deep suspicion (and yet, at times, a secret love) of money - and are still subconsciously controlled as adults by the schizophrenia of having money and yet fearing money/displeasing God by having too much - whether they flex or not.
Charles, I woke up to find your offering this morning and it met my heart's calling at such a precise, beautiful place of synchronicity that I simply had to write to say THANK YOU! All that you've shared thus far finds deep resonance and excitement in me. I well remember your early days of writing about Sacred Economics. And now, a decade later, you are revisiting from an even 'higher' order of wholeness (or at least it seems so to me.) I am so longing for this conversation!! I want to meet around a fire and discuss all of this with people finding and falling in love with each other so much that we blur and eliminate the lines between giving and receiving. I sense that this offering of yours will guide us towards new ways of realizing what we truly value and allow us to move forward ("right action") towards the more beautiful world...
I love the question "how may I be of good use to you?"
- First off, I sense it needs to be reciprocal, yes? Can we be of good use to you (and each other) as well? I'd love to sense into this as a collective.
- What feels so essential to me is the question of how economic choices impact community -- what creates the "tragedy of the commons" and what promotes prosocial, regenerative connections? In our hearts, I sense a deep longing for new answers about how we form strong communities that can withstand the winds of change that we both desire and yet fear.
- Could you/we please discuss what Elinor Ostrom delineated as the "eight core design principles" of sustainable communities? Her work, along with David Sloan Wilson, seems like a great place to start re-envisioning what's possible.
- Looking at key stories are something you do so well. I/we look forward to delving deeply into these, especially the archetypes, myths and cultural wisdom about money and exchange (eg Bernard Lietaer's work)
- Also, I/we may be able to add some benefit looking into the trauma surrounding money to unravel some of the reasons we often move back into ways that do not serve us (eg, my work on Money and Trauma with the Thomas Hubl community exploring collective trauma.)
- Lastly, my heart is longing to take the next step of envisioning a new future by doing the imaginal work you brought forward in the last chapter of The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible. I suspect we can come together to do much of this work through play, perhaps using role-playing games and imaginal connections with ALL that is wanting to serve humanity's leap forward right now (eg, Nature, Indigenous Wisdom, the Infinite).
Thank you, Charles -- I/we all need avenues towards hope and trust right now... Much love
I'm glad your tackling this Charles. I've long been thinking that we need a new and better economic system. Sacred Economics laid the groundwork for that, but I'm curious to see how you will build on that. Growth and acquisition of capital as aims for economic activity clearly have some serious flaws. Do we toss at the whole system, as the Marxists would have us do, or reform it, as Progressives would have us do? Or is there a third way? I believe that we need to replace the desire for growth and material security with a system based on values. Economics that don't reflect those values should be disposed of in a toxic waste disposal. These values have to do with the appreciation for all human life, for all other humans and for furthering the development of other humans on the spiritual value plane. We have been overly focussed in the history of civilization on material acquisitions, satisfying our appetites, and improving security and power. We need to move away from these and create a system that can enable everyone to flourish, but in different ways. Material acquisition needs to be demoted to its proper place, and replaced with higher values. The question I find hard to answer is how? Possibly you will have other ideas and possible answers to some of these questions. I look forward to your next article.
As a parent of 3 in America, with 2 in college and 1 in high school, I am deeply concerned about the economic prospects of young adults today. I hope that you will provide some hope that I can share with them, it's pretty bleak when we talk politics and finances at the dinner table lately. My father is a baby boomer and he lives with us. He is an intelligent man but he simply cannot wrap his head around the reality these kids are facing, or maybe he just refuses to accept it. It would be great to gain some tools to help bridge the gap. Thanks Charles!
Yes, please Charles. As a 68 year old in Britain today I am feeling increasingly alienated from society. I remember a time when people could afford to buy a home (before property was viewed as an investment) and it only took one wage earner in the family to bring in enough money for a comfortable life. The 'convenience' that the public seems to value (without thinking of the consequences) when using plastic instead of cash will inevitably lead to centralised digital currency and complete control.
This is a useful resource that is trying to set out a good alternative - https://www.lowimpact.org/categories/new-economy
How can we address:
1. that the global economy makes us not need each other in concrete ways (our goods and services mostly come from strangers/impersonal institutions and our gifts mostly go to such if we're lucky, and usually remain unexpressed)
2. that the global economy mostly makes us not need the other creatures of nature except in cold utilitarian ways because they are far away from us, not interacting directly with us for mutual benefit
3. that the global economy makes the feedback from actions to consequences in production and use of goods and services too slow, too abstract (far away in space and time) and too noisy (I can't tell what my impact is because it's mixed in with all these other people's/corporations impacts)?
I’m really interested in how to transform healthcare from disease management and dependency to true healthcare when so many have become so out of touch with health, don’t know how to heal themselves, and are dependent on medical interventions. There are not enough traditional, integrative, alternative healers or mind-body practitioners around for the shift required.
‘Our collective database’ indeed! Love that concept Charles. Takes Jungian Collective Conscience from metaphysics to ground floor.
THIS and all you propose is of GREAT use to me. Thank you as always.
Your insights are much needed and appreciated, Charles. I am interested in how to foster the transformative type of resilience in organisations. how to create the small and beautiful and local enterprises (especially when faced by the big and monstrous and global corporates). and how do we focus on local but also remain global. Looking forward to the essays! Big love from the Regenerative Economics students here at Schumacher College :-)
I am low-fixed income and disabled on benefits. Our perspective is often missing from these discussions. Please consider us in your thoughts.