I often ponder the economic paradigms we use, and I agree with many of the great modern ecologically minded economic thinkers who have endeavored to illuminate us. Paraphrased, the problem can be simply summed up as, we cannot become sustainable as a planet while our human economic system keeps chasing Gross Domestic Product (GDP). We have to stop thinking that we can tweak our way out of the global ecological crises that are building and will eventually cause human collapse. This will happen sooner rather than later as nearly everyone today will see the hubris of consumer living. It will not just be passed down to your kids or grandchildren; most middle-aged people will live through the coming collapse. I am not trying to scare you, just offer a realistic perspective.
Humans have proven to be quite ingenious in solving problems, but the problems we face now literally fall in to the quandary that Einstein noted – our global thinking isn’t changing to be able to solve what is coming. In Greek mythology, Cassandra was cursed for her ability to predict the future, such that regardless of what people heard from her, no one would believe her. In the environmental and sustainability fields, we have been warning of the many problems since at least the 1960s. Actually, the early consumerist paradigm in the USA had been critiqued as early as 1750s by a Swedish Diplomat, Peter Kalm, who gave ‘early warnings’ about how Americans were over-using resources based on experiences in Europe. At that time, while America seemed just one vast nation of inexhaustible natural resources. Europe was already experiencing natural resource problems, especially with over-logging and pollution problems that were only going to get worse as the industrial revolution started to accelerate industrial growth with the use of fossil fuels to power it all.
Until we truly come to terms with our failing global economic system, I doubt we will ever create a better world. I have written several times that Sustainability is a practice, not an end point. It’s a lot like being peaceful; it is a practice you do every day, not something that you hope will just fall into place. “If you want peace, you have to be peace. Peace is a practice … not a hope” Thich Nhat Hanh. And I don’t think our national leaders, as entrenched with the current global paradigms of armed security and increasing GDP as they are, can even consider it. No, if we want change, I doubt electing new leadership from the same economic-political pool, as we currently do, is going to change anything. We have nearly 8 billion people locked into a paradigm of conflict with each other and the natural world using economic theories that demand destruction to increase each country’s GDP. In the ancient world, environmental problems were relatively localized, but the industrial revolution changed all that and today we cannot go anywhere on Earth without seeing the results of global pollution.
The economic system that dominates this planet is the main cause for all our planetary ills. The thing we must change is using business profit as sole dominator of success (see my very first post, Economics and Well-Being 1 {January 2018} and Reframing and Visualizing a New Society 1 {March 2018}). Nearly everything that is currently profitable is bad for people and the planet. The dominating 1% of the planets financial investors figure majorly into how global collapse is occurring. As Russell Brand said about Vandana Shiva’s book, Oneness vs. the 1%: Shattering Illusions, Seeding Freedom, “This is what globalization looks like: Opportunism. Exploitation. Further centralization of power. Further disempowerment of ordinary people… Vandana Shiva is an expert whose analysis has helped us understand this situation much more deeply” Russell Brand.
Despite the use of newer environmental economic practices that factor in the natural world, and even ecological economic practices that make the natural world a center point, we still find ourselves caught up with GDP and the monetary elites who currently mis-control the system to benefit themselves. As Shiva says in her book, “Breaking free of the 1% and their constructs is not just possible, it has become necessary… It is a human necessity because participating in a world of limitless greed, profit, violence and power robs us of our humanity.”
It is beyond this post to discuss what our humanity is, but it is a crucial discussion we need to have with each other. Do we really believe we can thrive in just a technological world in which machines do all the work or is there a deeper purpose we all need in order to thrive as humans? A fascinating and deep thinker about humanity is David Martin of the WIPO who asks, “What is the economic value of a human being in a world run by machines.” The premise of this question is that our economic paradigms run from a Transactional Thinking perspective. This is where you interact with people solely based on what you can get, while completely ignoring them, their goals and their needs. Your mindset becomes one of “how do I gain from this?” Marin is a Relational thinker, “if this, then what?” Short-term thinking tends to be transactional in that immediate needs must be met, but this is a survival mode of living that hangs on a Standard of Living perspective of wealth in which the definition of ‘rich’ is having stuff amplifying the illusion that you can do it all on your own. True wealth is relational and long-term focused such that living is focused on being connected so that what you ‘need’ (not necessarily what you ‘want’) which is provided from outside of yourself. This is a redefinition of wealth (again, see earlier post, Economics and Well-Being 1 {January 2018}).
If anything, the past two years has diminished the independent person (the middle class) who are not beholden to the state and can therefore think outside of the state. We are not all in a position to step outside the current economic paradigms. However, increasingly many are literally thrust into it as they find debt becoming overwhelming and all that they believed they owned was taken away from them. Excessive debt has created an erosion of the middle class that are the drivers of any economy and allow a class of independent-thinking citizenry that can still make decisions. What was once a part of dark-age and medieval feudalism is now resurfacing as a modern form of feudalism – debt to the economic system. Klaus Schwab’s ‘Great Reset’ talks about putting everyone into an absolute socialist state, but at what cost of individual sovereignty? If we want a better and fairer world for everyone, then we need to take the reins of the economic beast and plan a form of economics that begins locally. What it will look like globally is still debatable, but our choice is to plan something that works for us instead of simply being pawns of what works for the 1%.
How do we do that? Well, for starters, many communities have already begun with Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS) which are locally organized, economic organizations that allow the exchange of goods and services among group members. The groups use locally created units of value (as currency) which can be traded or bartered in exchange for goods or services within the local system only to avoid control by the major banks. The British Cooperative Society Movement begun in 1844 (based on the ideas of Robert Owen (1771–1858), had successful merchants who promoted membership of the Co-op to encourage people to produce, buy and sell things together, and to all share the profits. Poor working people started giving regular small amounts of money to the cooperative so that, as a group, they could buy food, clothes, etc. to improve their lives. It has since blossomed into an international movement. It is likely that many of you already use a cooperative of some form (estimates are that 1 in 3 people globally are members of some form of cooperative).
To Be Continued ………
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