I am summarising here one of the most beautiful and useful books on economics, ecology and philosophy that I have ever read. I have written about this book before, but given the importance of the principles it mentions for the work I am currently doing, it is more than worth taking another deep look into this treasure:
https://sacred-economics.com/
I can only hope that every single economics, business and political science programme has this book as a reference, because people will benefit massively from it. Whether you are in activism, policy, research, industry, teaching or just curious, this book will challenge your view of economics, money and civilisation.
Motivation
Those who want to create a healthier, fairer and simply put more beautiful world have a hard time. Our system seems to make it much easier to exploit and monetise every single service than to protect the commons. Propaganda has managed to turn us into consumers rather than citizens by blaming us for the same addiction the campaigns target. "Every action counts" claim the giants of money accumulation and pollution, while we, the ants of the system, unplug our chargers, recycle and buy organic to save the world.
Year after year there is more GDP but less beauty, less connection, less gift. Cheap, mediocre petabytes of information devour our attention while the muscles of our attention span are flabby, unused and desperate. We celebrate unsophisticated sex, the accumulation of money and fame, and neglect generosity, solidarity and hard, meaningful work (caring, teaching, farming, cleaning...).
Environmentalism depends on economic valuations, and aid is valuable as long as it yields returns. We use intertemporal trade-offs to fool our children and grandchildren into believing in a distant future, and pretend that growth will bring all the predictable costs of irresponsible "development" to reason.
In our immaturity, we take every opinion as respectable, regardless of the amount of evidence and accumulated knowledge against it. We are no longer forced to back up our superficial denials about obvious problems like climate change and antropocene pandemics. The idiology and politics of football have collapsed our greasy brains that do not want to deal with contradictions and the common goals of humanity. Superficial division is convenient and dialogue is a long forgotten art.
Green growth, geoengineering and artificial intelligence are used to promise that things can go on as they are now, as if we want them to stay that way forever. There is too much technology and too little deep thinking in our civilisational foundations. We need a new history of self, society and economy. We need to leave behind the egoic gene and the mechaic view of the universe and realise that interdependence and sharing of gifts are the foundations of our civilisation.
Today I present to you a story, a new story of self, of money and what the economy might look like in the future. An economy that strengthens connections, the expression of our gifts and the protection of the commons. An economy where more for you is more for me, where growth is not mandated, where many services are delivered personally and locally, where costs are internalised, where commons are safeguarded and where we voluntarily reduce our footprint at a sufficient rate. This is the story of a sacred economy, let us begin.
It all starts with money...
Money is a source of evil and magic for many. Money can coordinate billions of people to share the work and achieve a productivity never seen before in history. It can transform a city or allow it to decay, keeping all the infrastructure and human capital alive or idle. The power of money is undeniable, and its accumulation becomes the ultimate goal to achieve a never-ending hunger for security and freedom.
Those activities that accelerate the accumulation of money are those that get more investment. The first reason is that the accumulation of money is a goal in itself, as it is versatile and almost never loses value. Second, positive interest rates force debtors to create more money fast enough to keep up in the race to compound interest. The conversion of commons into money (mountains into ski resorts, forests into mines, rivers into landfills...) is due to the pressure of the system to create more money and ultimately make the money work for those who own it.
This process led to an expansion of services and goods at affordable prices. When basic needs are met, more must be created. Marketing and programmed obsolescence drive up consumption, and in the absence of income, debt becomes another source of money creation.
The insatiable conversion of money makes economic growth exponential, on a finite planet with finite human time and finite needs to meet.
As money grows faster than production (see https://wid.world/ The Thomas Piketty rearch), wealth concentration and inequality grows, and with it the power of the market and politics. The economy has not been able to keep up with interest rates, and so debtors are struggling. Public services become the second priority and paying debts is taught in school before critical thinking or philosophy.
Money, as it is understood and used today, has taken away any possibility of helping our neighbours and others, because others can pay professionals to serve them in all areas. There is little we can do for our neighbours and we prefer to borrow from banks than from friends, even though there is no compound interest or collateral.
Since money is a human construct, we can reverse its use and purpose and put it in the service of the gift economy, an economy of connection and unique contributions, rather than the economy of efficiently standardising everything. How can we do this?
From profane to sacred money
In the following I summarize a list of changes required in the money system to be in line with our gifts and the economy our hearts know is possible:
- We need to move from money that expands sameness and standarization of all cultures and towns towards a money that protect uniqueness and the cultural contributions of each region, despite the efficiency tradeoffs.
- We need to use money to increase and not replace connections through the gift, increasing local interactions and estimulating the gift economy
- We need to change our reductionist view of the world, that other people and the environment are means towards self interest profit, that nature is selfish and man must dominate it.
- People must reconcile with the nature of the gift, the fact that most of what keeps us alive, such as oxigen, the energy from the sun, water, the soild, and civilization have been given to us, without us contributing to it. We are born in a gift. "No one has helped me to get here" is a false statement, even in the most extreme cases of hard chillhood, we made it to adulthood because there was a gift given to us.
- For those believing in God an expression of gratitude to the gift of creation should come from care and NOT explotation of all the commons. Nature as it is called should be sacred by all religions in the story of the gift. In any case, honoring the gift of life is about using it properly.
- Current money, is a one shot interaction that eliminate the union after the transaction,while the gift economy create bounds between giver and receiver.
- Money is essential to allow the exchange between people who do not have any goods/services to exchange. Money is a token that proves that you have helped others with your gifts and as a reward you received those tokens. This token is essential for the gift economy at the scale of global civilization.
- We need to break with the egoistic gene view of nature and human relationships, as survival is only part of the story, as there are continuous expressions of generosity and interdependency between livings forms. The ideology of the egoistic gene justifies our poor treatment of nature as resources and not as a essential partner of life.
- A finite world is not necessary a world of scarcity, when sufficiency exists. There is enough energy, water and healthy land to give a decent living to humans and other living beings. Scarcity is a mindset that justifies accumulation and postpone generosity. The food industry is a clear example, where obesity and starvation lives together in a clear ineffective allocation of nutrition and calories. We live in a world with slums and yatchs, with poverty and holyday resorts, with swimmingpools and drought. Scarcity is a fiction.
- Poverty today is not due to lack of production, is due to lack of distribution, our scarcity mindset stop us from ending poverty and avoidable disease. There is little money return and accumulation on helping the poor, or it is not enough for the homo economicus. Is it not the most beautiful usage of our savings, surplus... to gift to those who lack the environment, skill and luck to be fed, raise in a land of opportunity?
- A war mindset, agains virus, poverty and carbon, misses the important analysis of the causes of the crises of our time. Pandemics, energy inflation, poverty, climate change...are simptons of a ill usage of money that needs to be changed at the core, not fight, because there is no enemy, we create the system that goes agains fairnes and life, and we ought to change it, not fight it. Forget about sides, focus on the money system flaws and shape them.
- Our addictions, are symptons of poor connection. Entertainment is a substitue for social connection and creativity, fatty/sugar foods are a substitue for anxiety, a compensation for all the forced eslavement on living the life we do not want...By fixing the connection problem with ourselves, the others and the environment, we could stop all addictions one after the other.
- Greed is not natural, nor desirable. It is rooted in fear, lack of community and the poorly search of fullfilment via accumulation of tokens or the goods trade by them. It seeks conditional love, in the most basic form, in the most destructive way, for one self and the others. Why are "rich" people systematically less generous than "poor" people?
- Greed is not rational in the context of abundance, safety. Our perception of scarcity and unsafety makes us greedy, as is the rational thing to do.
- War, planned obsolescense, marketing, superfluous consumption and the expansion of suburbia are obvious facts of the excess of resources in our economies. We waste a significant portion of our wealth to destroy wealth, to buy things we do not need to impress people we do not like, expanding our isolation in big houses without connection to our communities, while eating necessary land for renewable energy, natural capital and other living forms that need it more than us.
- We all have cars, bikes, tools, clothes and devices that we use ~1% of the time. Why we are not sharing those things with our neightbours and friends? why do we prefer to pay 99 more times, or spend 99 more time of our life to own. Owning is not posseing, is about the experience of usage, there is little value in keeping it.
- Scarcity has also expand the experience of time, we are more productive than ever, with time saving devices, yet we are no less busy than previous generations. We experience time as scarce, because time is money, instead of life. We associate wealth as freedom, but only few define what sufficiency is, when the time for accumulation ends and therefore the freedom never comes...
- We use copyrights to made content availability scarce. The most alarming case is research publications, mainly financed directly or indirectly by public founds, yet we have to pay for access. These content is without exeption never purely original, as it was build under the shoulders of giants, the common architecture of knowledge spread through generations of science.
Before doing that, a couple of notes how money shapes how we see the world....
Money and the mind
The problem with property
The owners of money have almost infinite rights against the debtors. It is not sufficient to give away the collateral in case of bankrupcy, as the debt remains with the debtor for as long as his poverty remains. We have seen this in 2008 in Spain, where people claim "Sin casa,sin empleo y con hipoteca", because they lose the jobs after the bouble, give away the house but the debt of an overpriced asset remains with them. Those are the slaves of the so called modern capitalistic democracies. Similar treatment receive the countries of the so called 3rd world, or victims of colonization, as they have to pay loans that normally have profited dictators and corrupted goverments and not the people. Debt repudiation will become the new normal, if we ever want people and some countries to flourish from colonialistic expropiation.
Hatred should not lead our policy, but rather a smooth reform for debt auditing, a fair distribution of risks between creditors and debtors, and the elimination of economic rents from property, as those are letting money iddle and block all the possible valuable uses of money to build the green and steady state economic we want.
Eliminating rents require therefore 100% taxes on land, and the charge of public fees to ensure those willing to "own" the land are doing so to create sufficiently valuable services and not to speculate with the land itself. As we will see later, what rent is on land, interest is on money.
The Corpse of the commons
Can we claim full authorship of our creations? How do we split, return the contributions of all the learnings and failures that we leverage on our work to our final service? Are we not charging for free common knowledge when we protect via copyrights our creations? how much is fair? how do we return back to society? Are taxes of services and value added the solution?
Instead of having our own dreams, or creating our own worlds, our free time is full of prefabricated large scale entertainment, with massives doses of violence and sex. One wonder to which extend this limit our imaginary, our capacity to challenge the status quo, and how this have increased pollarization and primitive forms of intimacy.
In the streets, in the internet, in the tv, our exposure to advertisement and propaganda never sleeps. We end up desiring and discussing what others tell us to. Our common consumption patterns or the after lunch discussions are very common across families, and even the pollarization is standard. There is little uniqueness on what we buy, what we think or even what we discussed. Here, I made no claim of huge centralize big brothers of any sort, rather multiple caotic big centers of power and money that focus on the conversion of money, and that leads to poor consumption and political thinking. Those who belief all is a conspiracy will not find me in their lines, while tempting, money have many more conflicting owners our brain is able to cope.
We used to play outside, before the safety obsession bursted, with little tools as our imagination to have adventures and enjoy the outdoors. Now, in the cublicles of our homes, we have the adventures that were once free, and we all celebrate because GDP grows while we remain comfortably at home. The satisfaction of needs from the economy is an illusion, as many communication, networking and entertainment industry is monetizing what was previously free. With the exeptions of remote working and connection (used properly can be a blessing), videogames and social media could be objectively defined as monetization of the commons of imagination and community.
More money, more GDP, is expected to be linked to more utility. The willingness to transact money does not necessary mean wellbeing is improved by any mean (think of kidnapping, extorsion, corruption, war, drugs, prostitution...), as many uses of money have little ethical ground. We aggregate money flows equally, whether they reduce our net social or natural capital, or even physical capital. Our accounting system celebrates tsunamis, war, and destructive expenses as beatiful creations, but economist suggest to keep using GDP as nothing better has been found since 1927. We do have a flawed, unsocial and immoral way to measure production and wellbeing, making very hard, or uneconomical what our hearts tell us is the right and beautiful thing to do.
Wikipedia, volunteer work, caring work...do harm GDP growth. If we do not create monetary transactions from our service, that remains uncounted, or worse of all, the benefits of such social capital creation, goes missleadingly to other correlated policies with little causal effect. If we leave the ancient forest untouched, let everyone enjoy the beach, we are "missing out" opportunities to race up the GDP ranking. There is not enough questionning why, some countries with the highest GDP per capita values, perform so badly in health, happiness, violence, pollution.
I never think it before, but by writing this blog for free (I am open for gifts though : )), I do not force you reader to convert something to the monetary, and hence contributing the steady state economy. While I can afford that, it is important to ensure the professionalization of writing and research, particularly on unortodox ideas, as a way to keep the expansion of ideas of the hightest quality. In my personal case, I will do it in any case, as long as life allows me to : )
The economics of usury
It is very drained in our economic preanalytic vision, that interest, and particularly, positive compound interest, should go hand in hand with money lending. The reason is that we are incentivize to save and take risky investments by interest payments. In the absence of strong inflation, little interest make debt taking attractive, while detracting investment. As we will see, positive interest rates are the root of the mandate for growth, as specially in stagnant economies, or the economies of the steady state, the reason of the debt spirals we see in allmost all of G20 countries.
The most straightforward way to pay back the interest of money is to convert previously nonmonetary transactions into services (child care, culture...), making money more scarce and ultimately more necessary, as every exchange is now based on money. The circulation of money is essential, but bearing interest and particularly interest above the capacity of service creation (the famous r>g from Pikkety) is at the source of the inequality, debt and climate crisis we faced today.
We would only receive credit in that system if we are expecting to create more goods and services in the future, and hence economic growth. Some will manage, from some time, others will start a spiral of debt that will never be paid back (if you do not believe this, see the debt to gdp ratio of your country and the interest rates, to see how many years are required to cancell out the debts and the % of GDP dedicated to it...).
Positive and large interest rates on money pushes growth for a functioning system and makes rewarding only those professions which convert the commons and the previously free into a paid service. This is why there is so little money for culture, education, health, restoration...because many of those activities do not necessary provide economic growth.
As we reach planetary limits, and long hanging fruits are taken, economic growth will be harder, despite the innovations to come, energy conversion and useful work and not likely to grow at the rates of interest. This is key to understand the increases in inequality. Those who own capital and the interest rates payments see their wealth growing faster that those who only get income from labor, which is more tight to productivity growth.
There is a valid argument for having fees or interest to cover unsuccessful projects. If the rate of failure of investments is 3% and it was lend 100K in projects, at least 3% should be charged in order to breakeven. This is not necessary a problem. What we are claiming here is that if r is for example 5% and g is 1%, we have a problem as on average we will not be able to pay 4% of the interest. We could either the reduce the loss rate by better predicting failure and avoid it (which is limited and not reducible to zero), reduce interest rate to have an average rate below the growth of the economy (which will imply negative returns if default rate is greater). The message here is not that lenders should loose money, but rather than the higher the interest rates, and the further we push it from the sustainable levels of production, the larger the climate and debt crisis will be. Access to money and credit should be made as cheap as possible if we want a steady state economy.
We want an economy where producers get richer than owners of money, or at least not worse off. The only way for that to happen is that economic conversion is greater than the interest rate, and given the challenges to grow, those interest should become close to zero or negative (on average!).
The confusion in many marxists theorists is to consider all return on money as usury and not fair. There has to be a reward for wise and efficient allocation of money for impactful projects, while money should not return money on their own.
Our current tax system normally taxes too highly labor income, specially on low and medium levels, and too less wealth and capital, particularly risk-free capital gains (bond and deposits). The tax system should incentivize meritocratic rewards, such as those comming from labor and productive investments, and tax heavily rents and the interests of risk-free assets. On top of that reform, there have to be more limits in debt obligations and repudiation as there are now, if exploding inequality is to be avoided or amilierated.
Behind many indebted countries there is a perverse logic of forced infraestructure. The countries assumes debt to finance an apparently very essential vast infraestructure project, or multiples. In order to pay it, credits are given at interest. Normally those projects will benefit the politicians engaged and the big companies, but have little returns on society (high speed rail, airports, speedroads...). Later, they will be forced to dedicate larger parts of the public budget to pay the increasing debt. If the country obeys, there will be peace, but any intention to repudiate the corrupted investment will lead to coups and ultimately invasion. History is full with such cases (Haiti, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador...).
Inflation happens when money supply grows faster than the amounts of goods and services, but specially when the newly created money is used for consumption. While there is little good in extreme inflation (above 10%), the reason we are told to avoid by all means inflation is more due to the negative impact on creditor returns than on the labor class, as it should see their wages catching up with inflation levels. When wages are tight with inflation, inflation only harms the creditors of money and benefits the debtors. Who is the creditor class? Who does not want inflation? Bare in mind that inflation is a taxed to those who do not declare money, such as drug dealers, sex dealers and the like. It does not seem after all that we ought to have a little of inflation or?
Backed money
The Law of return
The pursue of profits in a global world is a race to maximize the externalization of costs and the race to the bottom in wages and environmental conditions.
Price = Desired Surplus + Internalized Cost
Profits = Desired Surplus + Externalize costs
Voluntary full cost accounting put fair companies in geopardy, legal enforcement and internalization of the cost must be in place. That could be done with cap and trade of taxes on bads. Global enforcement and leakage make the implemenation very challenging. In any case, the internalization of cost will push investments on saving that cost, such as resource augmenting technology or emission reduction system.
Negative interest economics
Money does not decay as most goods or physical things. Exchange at zero interest is very normal in a exchange economy without money, but it becomes innecesary in a monetize economy. Money is very different than bread, as the first grow exponentially due to the compound interest rates, while the latter decays over time rather fast.
If positive interest rates forces us to grow, creates unpayable debt and inequality, the opposite of the evils of interest could be achieve if we give money the properties of decay of the real economy. Money should depreciate as bread does.
If you have money you do not need now, the depreciation of money is sufficient motivation to lend it, even at negative interest rates, as otherwise it will decay. Money decay transforms money from a store of value to a mere medium of exchange, or at least a non increasing store of value.
The optimal interest rates would depend on what is the desired evolution of the economy, as very large econmies will likely have very negative interest rates to reach the steady state, while emerging economies may have positive interest rates for a while. An equilibrium will be reached, where the interest rates ensures there is not marginal benefit on holding money.
Some may claim that inflation has similar effects, but it is not so desirable as decaying money because of its costs (menu, shoe...). Most importantly, if money is not available to those willing to spend it, such as the low and medium class, very little benefit will get the society from inflation due to money printing as money is keep as a store of value by big creditors. The goal is to get money to circulate, and it does more effectively when everyone in the economy cannot profit from storing it.
Money decay will make banks eager to lend, even at negative interest rates, and as there could be a gap between the depreciation of money and the interest rate, there is still profit to be made by them (if depreciation rate is 7% and interest rates are -5%, there is still 2% gain for creditors). It is important to ensure that not only deposits but all money is subject to such decay to avoid massive extractions of money from the banks, so taxes on deposits does not seem like the best idea.
As money will decay, the central banks will need to create more of it. Note that, contrary to the marxist view against any return of money, here there is no claim that productive investment does not deserve returns. Here the claim is that holding money or risk-free assets such as pubic bonds /deposits or lands should no have returns. The steady state economy with free money supports rewards of productive investments wihout the mandate to growth, as the principal is not growing.
What do we do with current debts? As there are almost certainty that most debts are not refundable (as interest rates are faster than the economic growth), debt forgiveness will take place. Instead of a traumatic claudication of debt, progressive auditing and cancellation will take place like it was done in 2008-2010 with many banks. Hopefully the next time, printed money does not go only to creditors by to debtors too, as the later are the so called 99%. Yes, creditors will need to lose, but what is the alternative? is the current and expected levels of inequality sustainable?
Another argument in favor of negative interest rates is that instead of discounting the future, as we do with climate change impacts for example, we would put more long term thinking and weight more the future. Investments that show positive actual value will no longer be feasible with negative interest rates, as future costs are too great. The myopia of business needs a new glass called negative interests rates and free money. The time preference postulate where now is better than tomorrow only applies to basic needs, but not for anything on top of that.
We will redefine wealth but the intensity of transactions without interest, instead of the accumulation of money. Those who invest the most in projects that does not follow the growth and short term mandate, who create opportunities for those around them, even anonymously, are the ones to be called rich and to be praised.
Accumulation becomes a sign of separation, insecurity and no longer a status symbol. That does not required a miracle or three decades of investment in education, it just required a change in our monetary system that makes the right thing easier and the wrong thing harder, totally the opposite as it is today.
A negative interest rate economy is in line with our natural desire to let it go, to forgive and to live light and connected.
Steady state economics and PostGrowth
The Social Dividend
At the time of this writing, in the US the resignation levels have reach record levels. Workers in many industries such as health, education but also technology, are quitting like never in the last 20 years. Why would someone leave their workplace to start a new? Why taking the risk? Why lossing all this years of hard work to have a place in a complex organization? Many would not do such a move, not because they do not feel part of the great discontent, rather because they could not afford the risk. They are told to pay taxes that goes to finance the fossil fuels that ought to be in the ground forever, or wars that have nothing to do with freedom or democratic motives...Those who work the hardest and get the least (those who were the most essential during the pandemic), get paid poorly, and we vote against a social divident, or universal income, because it is "too costly".
There are two missleading perceptions in the arguments against unconditional income to have a decent life : food, shelter and hygiene.
- If we give that universal unconditional income, millions of people will not work, and the economy will collapse, because no one works without the money motive
- Our balances cannot cope with the cost of universal income
We do struggle some times, waking up early to work or doing sports are not always easy. Studying, learning something new, embracing into a new adventure...is both exciting but we experience a resistance, because, our brain is both a loving computer and a saving device.
This statement does not mean that money is the single motivation for effort, actually, it plays a very limited role, and increases in money (after the basics are covered) does little for happiness but most importantly to motivation. Wikipedia, open source libraries, volunteering, anonymous donations... are examples of zero drive from money. But you can also think how long does the boost of the last salary increase last in your heart? How long last the excitement of your new clothers, car or TV?
There are jobs that are boring, dangerous ... that without a money drive would probably would not find anyone. But would you spend your life laying in the beach, taking cocktails if you could? There is a inner voice to give in humans, to connect, to be relevant, to be appreciated... This is the gift calling.
The fear of policy makers is that a social divident will give the last push to those underpaid and misstreated, to quit and demand higher salary or search for alternatives. We could have a great resignation if we give a social divident today, but the solution is not to pospone the inevitable (we are no creating sufficient jobs), but rather to create a social net with no administrative pain, and make sure there are the conditions for job sharing.
If you fear of people engaging in drugs and viodeogames, you are missing our the millions of day to day examples of commitment towards greater causes and businesses happening each day. Some would certainly not work, maybe they have many family to take care off, or have not found their gift. Those who are lost need, if they are willing, to be help an assisted to find their passion and share their gift.
We need to stop the madness of fingerpointing the unemployed, or paying so miserable those who bring food, energy, water, care to our homes, for a little more of the minimum salary.
We cannot afford universal income
Universal income requires dedicating between 1 to 5% of the GDP[1], depending on the amount, coverage, model... Which is less that most countries invest in war, fossil fuel, underutilize infraestructure, administrative personsal for subsidies, prisions... We cannot get rid of all weapons today, nor prisions, but certainly there is incredible non essential expense in every goverment budget.
"Despite pledges to limit support, governments around the world spend more than $420bn (£313bn) each year subsidising the non-renewable energy, according to the UN Development Programme." [2]
The paradox of leisure
Since the times of Keynes, it seems inevitable that with the expected increases in productivity, in 2022 we would work around 15 hours each. That did not happen, and the reason is simple, at every chance to reduce working hours and have more leisure, we produce more, and those who can, consume more. The assigment of the additional pie have gone significantly more to the owners of capital, than those who only have labor, and nothing shows any reversal, as AI is focused to be a labor saving technology (which does not have to, by the way). There is a lack of institutional protection on workers willing to work less, and the speculative usage of housing makes it hard to sustain wellbeing while working less.
The social dividend has many ethical motivations, backed up by most constitutions:
- Every human has the right to have a decent life
- Every human has the right to be free, there is no freedom in poverty
- Every human has the right to work, but must not do so
- The goverment can expropiate any property for the common interest, and therefore reward society for the private usage of the commons
The social dividends shall no come from taxes over the medium or low class, it could come from a reprioritization of the current budget or from those who benefit privately from the commons (energy providers, manufacturing industry, those benefiting from biomass or biodiversity...).
On top of reducing the pressure to work in jobs we do not want to engage, it is probably the next most powerful way, together with the minimum salary, to empower workers to decide where and on what to work.
Making the Steady State economy concrete
- In a steady state economy without redistribution, increases in labor productivity will increase unemployment in the absence of work sharing
- Growth or estimulating demand has been the preferred option to keep people employed, as that does not required any sacrifice to the holders of capital
- Growth has been working less and less for the working class, as the periods of overproduction and low wages leads to a crisis
- Risk free interest rates gives the promise that in the future we will buy more leisure, and that pospones for a time that never comes the increase of leisure
- The scarcity of time leads to overcumption, forgetting that money is time, and time is life.
Notes on the gift economy
A growing gift economy is a degrowth economy, as the amount of transactions decays. Local for the physical, global for the informational, the more free our transactions become, the stronger our relantionship ties evolve. Gift is a act of rebellion, towards the corrupted trend that converts every service as tradeable and ultimately as a commodity.
Whether gift should be anonym or not remains an open question, as the revelation of its author make not pure in the sense that some social reward could be attached to the act of giving for free, and hence something comes back to the giver.
It is interesting to spot the uncomfort comming from receiving gifts such as
free dinner or a drive. We rush to compensate that gift, as we cannot bare the
idea of the connection resulting from that gift being given to us. Gift connect
us in ways that are at the present uncomfortable for those comfortable with the
"autonomy" and "independence" that money has given
them. I do not need anyone, I am selfsufficient, claim those with
the illusion that we are separated, individuals... While the truth is that everything we enjoy is
the result of a complex flow of relationships.
In the gift
economy, accumulation makes little sense. The ups and downs of life are covered
by the network. In today's world of separation, where networks are weak
and dependence is not welcome, the goal of most of us is to accumulate just in
case. In the absence of a social divident or a strong safety net, our family
and savings is all we get. In a gift economy, with a strong social divident and
network extending our family and close friends, the need of accumulation is
lower, as the current surplus could be applied with little personal compromise to
others needs and beautiful non productive uses.
Sacred Economics, in a nutshell
Sacred economics is about defining a new set of rules and policies to make good easier and bad harder. To restore the links in our society, breaking the reduccionist view of the separate individual, spreading our gifts in an abundance mindset. Our civilization is leaving adolescence behind, the times when the metabolism was only about growing and taking from the environment. The time to give back has come.
Money is not evil of itself, but we are using in a flawed way. In order to align money with our gifts we should internalized the costs of our goods, reward social use of the commons and land, and move toward a free money economy, to ensure interest rates are not pushing the growth machine. We need to audit debt and adjust interest rates based on the socially desired amount of growth, that will be different dependending on the industrialized level of each economy, being those more industrialized the ones having decaying money while those who benefit from growth could still have positive interest rates, for a temporal period of time.
To make work beatiful again, to ensure that we are free from hunger and missery, we need to implement a social dividend, and make it easier to reduce how much we must work, and eliminate rents in favor of service based investments.
More and more, we will use money to destroy money, giving back to the earth and using money in very human but non productive ways. We will relieve our backs from the load of owning, giving away for forests, oceans, culture and human rights protection, expecting no return, and no recognition. We have done little to the precious heritage of human civilization, the incredibly kind conditions of this planet and the love we have recieved. The most natural thing to do is not to take more, as we mature, we start giving and living the gift.
Comments
Post a Comment