"The 20th Century was the era of Buy Low/Sell High and Wealth Now/Philanthropy Later—what one venture capitalist called 'the largest legal accumulation of wealth in history.' The 21st Century will be the era of nurture capital, built around principles of carrying capacity, care of the commons, sense of place and non-violence." slowmoney.org
so says Citigroup in an explosive though under-reported memo to its investors seeking best returns on their insatiable capital. What does that mean? Ctitigroup, one of the world's largest banks tells us: "[T]he world is dividing into two blocs--the plutonomies where economic growth is powered by and largely consumed by the wealthy few, and the rest." And scholars that they are, they even provide their investors with some historical context and drivers with their advice so these favored few can rest easy that their path is well trod. "Plutonomies have occurred before in sixteenth century Spain, in seventeenth century Holland, the Gilded Age and Roaring Twenties in the U.S. What are the common drivers of Plutonomy? Disruptive technology-driven productivity gains, creative financial innovation, capitalist-friendly cooperative governments, an international dimension of immigrants and overseas conquests invigorating wealth creation, the rule of law, and patenting inventions. Often these wealth waves involve great complexity, exploited best by the rich and educated of the time."
You should read that all, and carefully, again. It is exactly descriptive of our current situation by the very cadre of people who put us here. They are fine students of history--they knew, and know what they are doing. But will this continue? Citibank is quite optimistic: "We project that the plutonomies (the U.S., UK, and Canada) will likely see even more income inequality, disproportionately feeding off a further rise in the profit share in their economies, capitalist-friendly governments, more technology-driven productivity, and globalization." There is an old joke about a patient complaining to his doctor that "It hurts when I go like this," moving his arm. To which the doctor replies sensibly, "Don't go like that!" This is exactly what we need to do. Let's take a good look at these drivers again...
...and think about how we can work towards its opposite. Seriously: not just ones you're inclined to abhor, like taking advantage of cheap and powerless immigrant labor and "overseas conquests." (not just war, but corporate imperialism like Monsanto monopolizing seeds as well) But also technology, in general--what do we really want and need? This is a critical question we all have to ask courageously ourselves--and answer honestly, authentically. (See the Unhappiness page for who is doing the choosing and why; and notice that Citigroup is exacting about the kind of technology they prefer: disruptive) And productivity: isn't this the bane of a truly healthy and sustainable economy? Jevon's Paradox makes clear that making more with less ultimately leads to making and using more and more: it is the endless process of the pleonexic, the one who can never be materially satisfied. Productivity is really a paradoxical villain: it means fewer workers doing more work and the profit gains from this insidious process are captured by fewer people. Wouldn't we rather people have work they enjoy? Creative financial innovation? We need to eviscerate the financial sector--it is of itself and for itself, but it depends on you: your work, your savings, your deposits: move your money project.org For creative finance start thinking about public banks, local currenices, time banking, re-localizing, and perhaps above all: needing less! As for patents, these are the wealthy and powerful fighting over who can be wealthier and more powerful. Patents are a way of limiting and circumscribing the world--social construction, crowd sourcing opens it up. Open up the world. |
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Offer alternatives, or just destabilize thought patterns to open up space for new ideas?
Of Households and Work
A collection of alternative economic systems beginning with the story
The Ant and the Grasshopper
Sacred Economics
Distributism
Social Ecology
Economic Democracy
Anarchism
TAZ Hakim Bey
What is debt? What is a Gift? Did barter evolve naturally into markets?
A New York Times book review of David Graeber's Debt: The First 5000 Years (Melville House, $32)
Anarchist Anthropology,
by Thomas Meany. Sunday Book Review December 8, 2011
The anthropologist David Graeber has a strong claim to being the house theorist of Occupy Wall Street. A veteran of the antiglobalization uprisings in Seattle and Genoa, he helped orchestrate the first “General Assembly” in New York this summer, and has since become one of the movement’s most outspoken defenders. For him, the encampments in cities across the country prefigure the kind of anti-hierarchical, stateless society that ought to be our future. In a recent opinion article in The Guardian of London, Graeber proclaimed OWS “the opening salvo in a wave of negotiations over the dissolution of the American Empire.” For a movement that has attracted an array of political sympathies, his voice reminds us that at its organizational core, Occupy Wall Street cleaves to anarchist principles.
But Graeber’s most important contribution to the movement may owe less to his activism as an anarchist than to his background as an anthropologist. His recent book DEBT: The First 5,000 Years (Melville House, $32) reads like a lengthy field report on the state of our economic and moral disrepair. In the best tradition of anthropology, Graeber treats debt ceilings, subprime mortgages and credit default swaps as if they were the exotic practices of some self-destructive tribe. Written in a brash, engaging style, the book is also a philosophical inquiry into the nature of debt — where it came from and how it evolved. Graeber’s claim is that the past 400 years of Western history represent a grievous departure from how human societies have traditionally thought about our obligations to one another. What makes the work more than a screed is its intricate examination of societies from ancient Mesopotamia to 1990s Madagascar, and thinkers ranging from Rabelais to Nietzsche — and to George W. Bush’s brother Neil.
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by Thomas Meany. Sunday Book Review December 8, 2011
The anthropologist David Graeber has a strong claim to being the house theorist of Occupy Wall Street. A veteran of the antiglobalization uprisings in Seattle and Genoa, he helped orchestrate the first “General Assembly” in New York this summer, and has since become one of the movement’s most outspoken defenders. For him, the encampments in cities across the country prefigure the kind of anti-hierarchical, stateless society that ought to be our future. In a recent opinion article in The Guardian of London, Graeber proclaimed OWS “the opening salvo in a wave of negotiations over the dissolution of the American Empire.” For a movement that has attracted an array of political sympathies, his voice reminds us that at its organizational core, Occupy Wall Street cleaves to anarchist principles.
But Graeber’s most important contribution to the movement may owe less to his activism as an anarchist than to his background as an anthropologist. His recent book DEBT: The First 5,000 Years (Melville House, $32) reads like a lengthy field report on the state of our economic and moral disrepair. In the best tradition of anthropology, Graeber treats debt ceilings, subprime mortgages and credit default swaps as if they were the exotic practices of some self-destructive tribe. Written in a brash, engaging style, the book is also a philosophical inquiry into the nature of debt — where it came from and how it evolved. Graeber’s claim is that the past 400 years of Western history represent a grievous departure from how human societies have traditionally thought about our obligations to one another. What makes the work more than a screed is its intricate examination of societies from ancient Mesopotamia to 1990s Madagascar, and thinkers ranging from Rabelais to Nietzsche — and to George W. Bush’s brother Neil.
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Sacred Economics, by Charles Eisenstein
This is the introduction to the book posted by majestic on disinfo.com. See below for chapter outlines and to watch Eisenstein's 12 minute youtube talk
(Need to write introduction using quotes from him...)
The purpose of this book is to make money and human economy as sacred as everything else in the universe.
Today we associate money with the profane, and for good reason. If anything is sacred in this world, it is surely not money. Money seems to be the enemy of our better instincts, as is clear every time the thought “I can’t afford to” blocks an impulse toward kindness or generosity. Money seems to be the enemy of beauty, as the disparaging term “a sellout” demonstrates. Money seems to be the enemy of every worthy social and political reform, as corporate power steers legislation toward the aggrandizement of its own profits. Money seems to be destroying the earth, as we pillage the oceans, the forests, the soil, and every species to feed a greed that knows no end.
From at least the time that Jesus threw the money changers from the temple, we have sensed that there is something unholy about money. When politicians seek money instead of the public good, we call them corrupt. Adjectives like “dirty” and “filthy” naturally describe money. Monks are supposed to have little to do with it: “You cannot serve God and Mammon.”
At the same time, no one can deny that money has a mysterious, magical quality as well, the power to alter human behavior and coordinate human activity. From ancient times thinkers have marveled at the ability of a mere mark to confer this power upon a disk of metal or slip of paper. Unfortunately, looking at the world around us, it is hard to avoid concluding that the magic of money is an evil magic.
Obviously, if we are to make money into something sacred, nothing less than a wholesale revolution in money will suffice, a transformation of its essential nature. It is not merely our attitudes about money that must change, as some self-help gurus would have us believe; rather, we will create new kinds of money that embody and reinforce changed attitudes. Sacred Economics describes this new money and the new economy that will coalesce around it. It also explores the metamorphosis in human identity that is both a cause and a result of the transformation of money. The changed attitudes of which I speak go all the way to the core of what it is to be human: they include our understanding of the purpose of life, humanity’s role on the planet, the relationship of the individual to the human and natural community; even what it is to be an individual, a self. After all, we experience money (and property) as an extension of our selves; hence the possessive pronoun “mine” to describe it, the same pronoun we use to identify our arms and heads. My money, my car, my hand, my liver. Consider as well the sense of violation we feel when we are robbed or “ripped off,” as if part of our very selves had been taken. continue reading...
For an overview of the chapters go to Reality Sandwich...
Sacred Economics: A 12 minute video that will give you a solid idea what this idea is about....
The purpose of this book is to make money and human economy as sacred as everything else in the universe.
Today we associate money with the profane, and for good reason. If anything is sacred in this world, it is surely not money. Money seems to be the enemy of our better instincts, as is clear every time the thought “I can’t afford to” blocks an impulse toward kindness or generosity. Money seems to be the enemy of beauty, as the disparaging term “a sellout” demonstrates. Money seems to be the enemy of every worthy social and political reform, as corporate power steers legislation toward the aggrandizement of its own profits. Money seems to be destroying the earth, as we pillage the oceans, the forests, the soil, and every species to feed a greed that knows no end.
From at least the time that Jesus threw the money changers from the temple, we have sensed that there is something unholy about money. When politicians seek money instead of the public good, we call them corrupt. Adjectives like “dirty” and “filthy” naturally describe money. Monks are supposed to have little to do with it: “You cannot serve God and Mammon.”
At the same time, no one can deny that money has a mysterious, magical quality as well, the power to alter human behavior and coordinate human activity. From ancient times thinkers have marveled at the ability of a mere mark to confer this power upon a disk of metal or slip of paper. Unfortunately, looking at the world around us, it is hard to avoid concluding that the magic of money is an evil magic.
Obviously, if we are to make money into something sacred, nothing less than a wholesale revolution in money will suffice, a transformation of its essential nature. It is not merely our attitudes about money that must change, as some self-help gurus would have us believe; rather, we will create new kinds of money that embody and reinforce changed attitudes. Sacred Economics describes this new money and the new economy that will coalesce around it. It also explores the metamorphosis in human identity that is both a cause and a result of the transformation of money. The changed attitudes of which I speak go all the way to the core of what it is to be human: they include our understanding of the purpose of life, humanity’s role on the planet, the relationship of the individual to the human and natural community; even what it is to be an individual, a self. After all, we experience money (and property) as an extension of our selves; hence the possessive pronoun “mine” to describe it, the same pronoun we use to identify our arms and heads. My money, my car, my hand, my liver. Consider as well the sense of violation we feel when we are robbed or “ripped off,” as if part of our very selves had been taken. continue reading...
For an overview of the chapters go to Reality Sandwich...
Sacred Economics: A 12 minute video that will give you a solid idea what this idea is about....
Can Money Buy Happiness?
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"...Every living thing stops growing...Development is not a quantitative thing, it is a qualitative thing. I stopped growing a long time ago, but I haven’t stopped developing...
...The assumption is that what cannot be measure does not exist. Your feelings are real. We must learn how to intelligently combine the quantitative with the qualitative. ...We are an inseparable part of the whole. The whole history of science in the west has been a history of fragmentation—from Descartes on...'I am here and nature is over there.' You are part of the whole, you are part of nature. If that clicks in peoples’ minds you can have a dramatic change.” Manfred Max-Neef |
Economist, Manfred Max-Neef, winner of The Right Livelihood Award, 1983
"There are two separate languages now - the language of economics and the language of ecology,and they do not converge. The language of economics is attractive, and remains so, because it is politically appealing. It offers promises. It is precise, authoritative, aesthetically pleasing. Policy-makers apply the models, and if they don't work there is a tendency to conclude that it is reality that is playing tricks. The assumption is not that the models are wrong but that they must be
applied with greater rigour... While the many deficiencies and limitations of the theory that supports the old paradigm must be overcome (mechanistic interpretations and inadequate indicators of well-being, among others), a theoretical body for the new paradigm must still be constructed."
Note that Max-Neef said this nearly 30 years ago--and recieved one of the world's most prestigious awards for his insightful ideas. His work, and that of countless others remain largely marginalized and stunted because of the rapaciousness of capital and the social order it creates based on fraudulent use of competition as the central organizing principle. The privileging of competition is unnatural, rewarding the pleonexic and thereby threatening the health and well-being of us all. Some organizations are doing good work and gaining traction (see home page links) but these efforts too will fail if we don't discard the fiction of disembodied capital. It makes no sense to base our economics and, therefore much of our social order, on an amoral ontological construct with no human qualities. (see Are You a Capitalist?, on Capitalism Critiqued page)
applied with greater rigour... While the many deficiencies and limitations of the theory that supports the old paradigm must be overcome (mechanistic interpretations and inadequate indicators of well-being, among others), a theoretical body for the new paradigm must still be constructed."
Note that Max-Neef said this nearly 30 years ago--and recieved one of the world's most prestigious awards for his insightful ideas. His work, and that of countless others remain largely marginalized and stunted because of the rapaciousness of capital and the social order it creates based on fraudulent use of competition as the central organizing principle. The privileging of competition is unnatural, rewarding the pleonexic and thereby threatening the health and well-being of us all. Some organizations are doing good work and gaining traction (see home page links) but these efforts too will fail if we don't discard the fiction of disembodied capital. It makes no sense to base our economics and, therefore much of our social order, on an amoral ontological construct with no human qualities. (see Are You a Capitalist?, on Capitalism Critiqued page)
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Economic Democracy
Can There Be “Good” Corporations? by Marjorie Kelly posted Apr 16, 2012 YES! Magazine
When companies are owned by workers and the community—instead of Wall Street financiers—everything changes.
Our economic system is profoundly broken. To anyone paying attention, that much is clear. But what’s less clear is this: Our approach to fixing the economy is broken as well. The whole notion of “fighting corporate power” arises from an underlying belief that there is no alternative to capitalism as we know it. Starting from the insight that capitalism has become virtually a universal economy, we conclude that our best hope is to regulate corporations and work for countervailing powers like unions. But then we’ve lost before we begin. We’ve defined ourselves as marginal and powerless.
There is another approach. It’s bubbling up all around us in the form of economic alternatives like cooperatives, employee-owned firms, social enterprises, and community land trusts. We don’t recognize that these represent a coherent, workable alternative to capitalism, for two reasons.
First, we haven’t acknowledged what unites them. Second, we don’t have a name for this seemingly disparate batch of alternatives.
Ownership unites them. That’s the reason that these different models represent change that goes deep. It’s the reason this change is fundamental, enduring, and real. This transformation doesn’t depend on the legislative or presidential whims of a particular hour, but is instead a permanent shift in the underlying architecture of economic power.
The alternatives emerging in our time represent an unsung ownership revolution. This revolution is about broadening economic power from the few to the many and redefining the purpose of economic activity. The aim isn’t to endlessly grow gross domestic product or to create wealth for a financial elite, but to generate the conditions for the flourishing of life.
continue reading...
Our economic system is profoundly broken. To anyone paying attention, that much is clear. But what’s less clear is this: Our approach to fixing the economy is broken as well. The whole notion of “fighting corporate power” arises from an underlying belief that there is no alternative to capitalism as we know it. Starting from the insight that capitalism has become virtually a universal economy, we conclude that our best hope is to regulate corporations and work for countervailing powers like unions. But then we’ve lost before we begin. We’ve defined ourselves as marginal and powerless.
There is another approach. It’s bubbling up all around us in the form of economic alternatives like cooperatives, employee-owned firms, social enterprises, and community land trusts. We don’t recognize that these represent a coherent, workable alternative to capitalism, for two reasons.
First, we haven’t acknowledged what unites them. Second, we don’t have a name for this seemingly disparate batch of alternatives.
Ownership unites them. That’s the reason that these different models represent change that goes deep. It’s the reason this change is fundamental, enduring, and real. This transformation doesn’t depend on the legislative or presidential whims of a particular hour, but is instead a permanent shift in the underlying architecture of economic power.
The alternatives emerging in our time represent an unsung ownership revolution. This revolution is about broadening economic power from the few to the many and redefining the purpose of economic activity. The aim isn’t to endlessly grow gross domestic product or to create wealth for a financial elite, but to generate the conditions for the flourishing of life.
continue reading...
