It has never been more obvious that the global economic model is dysfunctional. The disruption in the infinite growth required to support current financial systems will have drastic consequences. Now would be a good time to look at how we keep score, and consider trying another approach. There are two predominant systems being employed, at this time. Neither is sustainable.
Capitalism
This is the economic system wherein an individual produces something of value and exchanges it for money with someone who wants the thing, more than they want the money it costs. In the wild, at small scales, this system works pretty well, but it has some problems. Chief among these are the disregard for externalized costs, and government interference. In America, today, capitalism has been corrupted into a means for a sliver of society to exploit the masses. Government regulations and policy always tilt the playing field to advantage the big donors who fund political campaigns. This results in mega corporations monopolizing the market. Individuals are squeezed out, unable to bare the cost of compliance, licensees, and tax disadvantages. The trend of this cronyism leads to all of the capital accumulating in the hands of a few. “Wealth inequality” is the popular phrase to describe this phenomenon. The concept that wealth should be equal is blindly ignorant, but we’ll get to that, in a bit. The issue of externalized costs is of even greater concern. If we take the reductionist view of assigning a dollar value to everything, then it is logical to inject 200 toxic chemicals into the aquifer in order to harvest low grade fossil fuels. Capitalistic systems tend to cause great damage to the environment, as they incentivise extraction, but not conservation and regeneration.
Communism
This is the economic system wherein an individual produces nothing, and expects someone else to pay him, anyway. It is fashionable to call this system “socialism” these days. The problems with this economic approach are that it lacks any incentive for meaningful work, requires authoritarian control, and kills people by the hundreds of millions. Russian soviets tell us that, in that regime, everyone had an annual income of $75,000. The problem was that there was nothing to buy, with that money. Of course there wasn’t. Who would produce anything if there is no incentive to do so? The young, and unsophisticated tend to gravitate to communism because it sounds nice, and fair, and compassionate. However, when you attempt to operate a system without incentives, you must use fear and violence to motivate people. The slight of hand used to sell this ideology is the conflation of political equality with economic equality. It is one thing to suggest that everyone have equal opportunities. It is quite another to suggest that everyone must have equal outcomes.
Centralized or Autonomous
Both of these economic schools (modern socialism, and crony capitalism) require centralized authority. The reason these are the two sides of the false dichotomy offered by politicians is because these are the systems that require politicians. Why would the people who chose to spend life exerting power over others ever suggest a system that would make them obsolete? If we want freedom, health, and beauty in the world, centralized authority over economy must end. As always, greater autonomy comes with greater responsibility. Current systems tend to prioritize convenience. The reason tyranny keeps blooming through history is that people tend to fear inconvenience, and are willing to trade their freedom away in exchange for what seems like the an “easier” way.
Incentives
So, how do you have an economic system which is stable, non-exploitative, and ecological? We have to get the incentives right. Capitalism fails because the incentives encourage greed and hoarding. Communism fails because the incentives encourage jealousy, indolence, and entitlement. Any viable economic model must be designed to align with what people naturally want to do. Rather than using external force and coercion to motivate human action, wouldn’t it be better to design our systems to serve our internal motivations? So, what do people actually want? Well, there is the classic hierarchy of needs: food, clothing, shelter, and such. There also is a need for the esoteric: love, beauty, art, and comradery.
In capitalism, the incentive is wealth accumulation, which is born of a presupposition of scarcity. It is a fear based perspective assuming that one must amass wealth before others consume the resources you need. The modern evolution most experience is debt slavery. You are incentivised to keep playing the game for fear of being overwhelmed by your obligations and ending up homeless and begging.
In communism, the incentive is fear of being sent to a re-education camp, shot, or excluded from the economy.
But, what if there was a way to have better food, stronger communities, more beauty, more free time, richer culture, and less stress? What if we could do this without threats and hierarchy? Well, we can. It will require a philosophical shift. We must reject the authoritarian model, and view the world not in terms of dollar value, but in terms of natural abundance. We must stop looking to parental figures to solve our problems, and figure things out as individuals and communities.
Eight forms of capital
Ethan Roland and Gregory Landua wrote an article, back in 2011, identifying eight forms of capital, rather than the simple financial capital. If you want to read it, here’s a link. The idea is that value exists not just in money, but in knowledge, experience, relationships, nature, spirituality, et cetera. (My dear friend, and mentor, Ben Morea hates the term “capital”, and I realize that term triggers some on the left, so I will diverge from the original authors and substitute the term “value”.)
To a capitalist, the value of an acre of woodland is equal to the price of the board feet of lumber contained within it. This view discounts the value of the role of that living forest in the hydrological cycle, the habitat it provides, the beauty, the carbon cycle, and the topsoil creation. How many Illuminati trading cards is the shade of a 100-year-old oak tree worth? It cannot be calculated. If we act with only the financial value as a priority, then the right move is to clear cut the forest, and sell the timber to a mill. If we take into consideration the natural value of the forest, we leave it growing, and find way to serve the life within it. This will include removing dead or crowding trees which we can use for fuel and building material, while the ecosystem remains intact. It perpetuates to provide natural value, intellectual value by showing us how soil is formed, spiritual value in the closeness with the divine we feel within it, social value in the benefit it is to the surrounding community, and so on. It continues to produce berries. mushrooms, and deer for our tables.
Here is an anecdote about how using gift economy, in conjunction with an understanding of these eight forms of value, allowed me to fill my pantry without using money:
I had the desire to can up marinara, salsa, and other tomato products. I lacked the natural value of the tomatoes, as I was still a shit gardener. I used my social value to ask one of my bros in the farming community if he knew of anyone who might have a surplus. He then used his social value to reach out to some local farmers. It turned out that a frost had kissed a field that had been mostly harvested, leaving the remaining tomatoes super sweet, but not suitable for the white market. (The “white market” is the narrow band of commerce that is legal, sanctioned, taxed, and permitted by the State. The “grey market” involves the same products or services, but without government permission, or taxation. The “black market” involves trade of goods or services forbidden by the control perverts.) They were perfect for my needs, however, in the gray market. We filled the bed of my truck (for no money) with the most amazing, heirloom, frost-kissed tomatoes. Another farm offered up more tomatoes, along with onions, basil, jalapenos, oregano, garlic, and more. They wished for half of the product, in exchange. I was able to trade my labor, and intellectual value for the natural value from their fields. They even offered to buy the jars needed to can their half. I ended up taking a feeder lamb from them, instead. By spending social value, I increased my social value by forming more and deeper relationships. By spending their natural value in giving me produce, that farm increased their natural wealth by also having a well stocked pantry of value added food, By spending my intellectual, and experiential value to craft salsa, marinara, ancho BBQ sauce, peeled tomatoes, ketchup, and more, I learned more about canning at scale and how to process tomatoes. Everything increased in value for having “spent” it. Everyone involved greatly benefited from the exchange. I sent prepared product to that first farm, as well. In total, about 400 jars of amazing food came out of it. The only money involved bought jars which I still use, to this day.
Money is the only form of value that diminishes when used. It is also the only form of value that allows the idle rich to exploit workers. If design considerations for any endeavor de-prioritize financial concerns for all other forms of value, everything grows and gets better. When money is the only priority, there is death and destruction.
How it could be
By viewing economic and human activity with consideration and prioritization of this holistic understanding of value we can free humanity, and live beautiful, meaningful lives. We can heal the ecosystem, feed everyone, clean the water, and restore the soil. We can work less, laugh more, and be surrounded by quality and beauty. True, there is no room in such a system for parasites, but we don’t need them.
The quality of a person’s life should be the result of their effort and ingenuity, not their ability to screw others. The capitalist attempts to get the upper hand in every deal. The commie attempts to live off of the efforts of others. There should not be an equality of outcome, because that leaves no incentive for greatness. You should be free to build something amazing, or phone it in, if that is what you choose. Just don’t expect others to pull your weight.
We can have vibrant, local micro economies with rich culture and strong communities. We just can’t do it while relying of the violence of government to control the behavior of others. If we live amazing lives, others will be drawn to that. Bad actors will adopt better ways if those ways are magnetic. The governments will wither and fade, being replaced by voluntary organization for collective benefit. If we want to expedite the decline of “The State”, we can do that through counter economic activism, but that is for a future post!
Now is the Time
The “New World Order” global economy has failed. It cannot recover without further enslavement of the people. It will not provide for your needs. The stores will be bare. Food will be destroyed while children go hungry. If we wait for government to impose a solution, we deserve all of the horror and tyrant that solution brings. Instead, we can build a new economy, that works for all of the rest of us. It starts with trading apples for pears, over the fence. If it grows from there with the intent to serve life and create abundance, beauty will follow. Things are only getting stranger and more unstable in the dying economy. Let’s take charge by serving our own needs, rather than waiting to find out what the Sate decides to do when there isn’t enough food for all of the “non-essential” people.
Here are some links to more on this subject. Amazon pays me a small commission, at no cost to you:
