Pursuit of the common good

(See the previous post for the cliffhanger.)

        Indeed, on the very last page, in the last two sentences in the second to the last paragraph, the Skidelskys write:

Could a society entirely devoid of the religious impulse stir itself to pursuit of the common good? We doubt it.
 

        Excuse me!? Are Robert and Edward suggesting what I think they mean? Let's see. So without a god consciousness the whole of humanity cannot summon the will to solve its problems with, for example, capitalism as the overriding force controlling our mental framework. As much as I concede it will be difficult, I can't bear to give in to this level of cynicism just yet. Besides, the so-called religious impulse they're referring to is hardly a universal human trait, whereas the fact that we live in a capitalist state is incontrovertible. I find this level of doubt about the base impulses of humanity a sad commentary even if it appears to be true.
        A month ago when I first read that page I jotted down my initial reaction—People are at war with each other because ultimately they are at war with their own human nature and what it means to come to terms with that.
        This is the heart of what is so difficult to understand, describe, and parse into meaning so that people would feel compelled to take action. How many people have to be at exactly what level of despair in order to start living differently? And don't think that despair is the sole motivator. Anyone can come to this on their own from many levels of consciousness.
        If you want to describe that as coming from god, fine, but I think you'll find that it originates equally from self-interest, survival, and simply wanting to be at peace with the world, rather than struggling with the false dichotomy that capitalism forces on us. Money = self-worth, no money = no worth.
        But don't take my word for it. If you've read TwentyFirstCenturyCitizen before, you know I've mentioned the many people who study human behavior for a living. There are so many souls out there trying to get us to believe in the depth of our better nature, our higher selves.
        I hope it's not too late, but unlike the Skidelskys, I can't bring myself to say:

I doubt it.

 



On how we get to enough

        Rather than give you a complete summary of How much is enough?, Robert and Edward Skidelsky's new book, I'd like to zero in on a few of their more salient points. In chapter seven, "Exits from the rat race", they suggest adjustments in social policy and start with a short list: 1) basic income 2) reducing the pressure to consume, and 3) reducing advertising.
        Ideas of basic income have been around for a long time, sometimes called guaranteed income, sometimes called negative income tax, as promoted by Milton Friedman. Whatever the source, bringing this to reality seems unrealistic. In fact, in 1966 Robert Theobald wrote extensively about it in Guaranteed income: freedom or chaos? He characterized the difficulty of bringing it to fruition by going to the root of our ingrained thinking.

The shift from a psychology of scarcity to that of abundance is one of the most important steps in human development. A psychology of scarcity produces anxiety, envy, egotism (to be seen most drastically in peasant cultures all over the world). A psychology of abundance produces initiative, faith in life, solidarity. The fact is that most men are still geared psychologically to the economic facts of scarcity, when the industrial world is in the process of entering a new era of economic abundance. But because of this psychological "lag" many people cannot even understand new ideas as presented in the concept of a guaranteed income, because traditional  ideas are usually determined by feelings that originated in previous forms of social existence.
 

The last sentence of this quote reminds me of Einstein's: We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.         And so, while I love this idea, I think I am not willing to wait for this "lag" as Theobald calls it, to catch up to us in this highly productive era we live in, especially given that those who have created all this incredible productivity are not the ones taking advantage of it. I don't expect the owners of empire to be loosening their grip on capital any time soon.

        The next one, however, has fascinating historical roots. Ever heard of sumptuary laws? As a way to curtail the pressure to consume, there were once laws that restricted extravagance. Can you believe luxury was a moral evil, because it implied that economic resources were being diverted from productive uses? When these laws were abolished spending on luxuries previously confined to the rich soon became a feature of everyone's desired way of expenditure. Unfortunately, prohibition and taxation of particular goods is ineffectual. Skidelsky suggests a general consumption tax as a way to reinstate the use and value of sumptuary laws.  
        The third one on the list, reduce advertising, seems like a no brainer. It would introduce tax reform so that businesses could no longer write off advertising costs as an expense. Ten percent or more of the price of goods represents the cost of advertising them. If this cost had to be absorbed by  business rather than consumers, we'd experience quite a distinguishing shift between necessities and luxury goods. Presumably those products with the weakest link to needs would have reduced sales, and the cost of essential products which need little or no advertising would stabilize and potentially decrease. Again, this idea has been in circulation for a long time. In 1997, Cecile Andrews mentioned it in her work The circle of simplicity.
        Outside of economic reform suggestions, the Skidelskys' book accurately describes the inadequate ways we've defined the good life. Chapter four even addresses the problems inherent in measuring happiness in connection to levels of material well-being. As much as I appreciated this book, it felt like territory that has been covered before in similar ways. However, just as it was about to end, in fact, on the very last page....

stay tuned

A book for the inquisitive soul

             There have been times when I have fantasized about having a life still of this world, but resolutely beyond the rat race. I live on a farm, play with animals, weave baskets, and the crops never fail. It is a world devoid of customers, bosses and the general public. It is populated only by friends who bring tureens full of soup and loaves of warm bread wrapped in linen kitchen towels. I saw this world briefly in the heartland of Minnesota when I was four years old. It was probably Lake Wobegon.
             It is this fantasy that has made me curious about people who are trying to live it. So as I study the social and economic upheavals of our time, I also look for those few courageous souls who find a way to break from the conventional path of life in the U.S.

             Nowhere is this attempt to live a singularly defined life more thoughtfully rendered than in Mark Sundeen’s book, The Man Who Quit Money. It is the story of his friend, Daniel Suelo, who throughout his adulthood seeks to reconcile his spiritual beliefs with the outward expression of his life within human society.
             Sundeen carefully, methodically builds our understanding of Daniel’s journey through his religious upbringing, college years, social maturation and his many attempts to find meaningful work. Through the use of letters, diary entries, and the recollection of friends, this man emerges complete as we see his faith transformed. He makes several attempts over many years but eventually realizes he has in many ways already come to terms with how to live without money.
             This is an intelligent work, a story that could have easily made its subject appear little more than a tragic fool, but Sundeen neatly avoids that by crafting his narrative based on Daniel’s search for meaning. I was unexpectedly moved even while I didn’t relate to every confrontation or emotional upheaval. A universal struggle threads continuously throughout the story, and Sundeen's observations bring to light a compassionate hindsight making sense of each conundrum.
             The Man Who Quit Money reveals how Daniel’s insight and intellectual inquiry develops over time. The evolution of his attitude toward poverty and wealth is woven into the context of current events and other writers and spiritual leaders. He concludes:

Money is merely the most convenient means of keeping track of the much deeper, and timeless, human inclination towards credit and debt. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Yet we humans have stolen payment and debt from the gods. We cannot freely give or freely receive anything. We live under constant obligation.

            No matter your feelings about this guy, it is difficult to walk away from this book without having at least a few of your ideas about living with and working for money tweaked into a more amorphous shape. This is one of the most thought-provoking books I’ve read in 2012, and the beauty of it is that you don’t have to relate to Daniel’s struggle in order to find what sooner or later nearly everyone questions.

A nod to my inspiration

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the sources from where I've pulled together much of my thinking from the previous post. First up, for a very interesting view of collective evolution and where we ought to be setting our sights please refer to this Jeremy Rifkin book. However, I sometimes think he overreaches in his conclusions with statements that leave me scratching my head, longing for more specificity of vision. Statements like: The informal economy, which includes household production, barter, and at the extreme end, black market and criminal economic activity, is also likely to diminish as traditional economies transition into high-tech societies.

From an environmentalist and consultant point of view, refer to Paul Gilding's book. I find him to be a great pragmatist and he does not mince words about how much need there is for constraints on human behavior in the realm of capitalism and the difficulty in accomplishing policy change within the current political context.

Biosphere consciousness, social capital, and taming the market tiger

Why do I get out of bed in the morning?—to avoid becoming someone I don’t want to be, someone conscious, but not awake, someone who moves about, but isn’t strong, someone who grows distant from other people, but who wants more than anything to remain vitally engaged. So to increase my awake, strong, vitally engaged self I’m jumping back into the blog glögg and going for a swim. As I had hoped my summer hiatus, which turned into summer, fall, and most of winter, proved to be fruitful thanks to relentless cross-pollination of excellent, non-fiction reading.  I can hardly be an expert on everything that interests me. So I am encouraged when there are so many authors who dare to describe and prescribe conditions for our society’s improvement and healing. What follows is a compilation of the key points from these writers.

How will humans evolve when our choices within a market economy are driven by the very forces that serve to destroy us? While we ride the tide of ever escalating and sophisticated technology, how can we manage social changes brought in its wake?

The answer is essentially a recognition that we can no longer maintain the growth of capital at the expense of social capital. Any enterprise in the 21^st century that wants to capture the social conscience will have to do so while grounded in “biosphere consciousness.” As described by Jeremy Rifkin this organizing principle follows the natural rhythms of life, and the laws of energy. It powers every living thing in existence; photosynthesis, solar power, geo-thermal power, etc. Equally as important is the goal of social capital—empathic engagement with one’s fellow human beings. It represents accumulated trust between people and helps create the narratives that bind us together. Slowly we are learning how to treat each other and share what we have so that our culture reflects who we want to be.

Much of what has spurred the development of these ideas is the massive dysfunction of the organizations and systems in which we currently live.

Anticipated re-orgs:

·         A long string of stalemates has eroded trust in our government. People will withdraw their support or force a reorganization.

·         Intelligent technology will substitute for various forms of human labor in the commercial arena, while social capital in the collaborative community will increase.

·         Education reform: In many ways we are teaching ourselves how to live in what Rifkin calls a distributed, collaborative, open-source economy.

Our culture and its leadership have no choice but to drive the changes we seek. Transformation initiated by government can happen, but only under pressure from its citizens.

                How can the system self-correct unless we intervene?

                There is an undeniable need to impose limits on human behavior. Capitalism as we know it will re-align favorably with environmental conservation initiatives when it is proven that they deliver measurable financial reward. The market and its regulatory context must reward businesses for their performance. Rather than making business the demon, it must be reformed from within so that values of its well-being are not at odds with maintaining the health of our physical world. From decades of having witnessed the carnage of oil spills, we have learned that pleas for intelligent environmental protection have fallen on disbelieving ears, and it is insulting to imagine that the cost of repair can ever equal the loss of our one and only world. As Paul Gilding puts it, we must cage the market tiger.  

Please stay tuned for next week’s installment where we find how personal economy gets involved.