An Economy “Just Like Heaven”
If, because of The Quarantine, we have any more space for our thoughts, let’s use this space for questions, concerns, insights, ideas, plans, and discussions regarding our ability to design a regenerative economic ecosystem — focusing on Where You Live.
As with any ecosystem, clean water in balanced abundance is necessary for life to thrive. With an economic ecosystem, the metaphor plays out well: the liquidity of currency is also essential in satisfying the basic needs of life. When the currency flow dries up, communities wither. More often than not, we spend time talking about the observable symptoms of a withering planet. Public discourse, the news, and even education consist primarily in describing the observable symptoms of a broken economic ecosystem — then arguing which problems are the worst, are worthy, or even real.
Let’s redirect the flow of our conversation. We can also talk about how to turn on the spigot and allow for a refreshing abundance of clean currency to revitalize people and place. Examples from history and around the world prove it is possible.
Leading the positive examples is Grassroots Economics, which has been helping communities to design, issue, and track the benefit of Community Inclusion Currencies (CICs) in Kenya. The newfound flow of money has increased food security (78%), increased sales revenue (37%), increased trust (77%), and increased giving to the tune of 347%. Notice these two astounding final figures. Trust and giving increase oxytocin release, as neuroeconomics professor Paul Zak, of Claremont Graduate School demonstrates in his research. So releasing oxytocin, the hormone responsible for the rapture of love and connection, is directly related to the free flow of money. Flow is not the same as abundance. Flow is reciprocity and movement to where it is needed most.
A desiccated field cannot be irrigated by a hurricane, as a community cannot be revitalized by Quantitative Easing. In 2017, for instance, 82% of the wealth created went to 1% of the population. The cycle is so vicious, it actually siphons the wealth out of communities, and sends back up the pipeline, as purchases are made, loans are repaid, and communities sell their future tax revenue to banks and investors.
Just as we can design water channels to Slow it, Spread it, and Sink it, we can design money to go where it is needed and circulate. We can heal the false scarcity of money- and in doing so, the love and connection in communities.
Tonight I sat in the ER with one of my favorite teenagers who has suffered multiple suicide attempts. I was fortunate to have the chance to take her first into nature with my sons, and spend time swimming and paddling in a creek. On our adventure, the children talked about the natural pleasure of giving, and how disappointing it feels to have that robbed from them with continuous external demands. I thought of oxytocin levels. Is the pressure of an industrial model of education and society starving their brains of oxytocin? Emotional trauma is part of the fallout of economic trauma.
Do we have the space to refocus our interpersonal conversations? Giving by listening, and co-creating what is possible? Can we make the space to be proactive about the flow of our collective conversation — which is fundamentally The Economy? It is possible that just like heaven, we don’t know how good it can get.
To learn more, visit www.grassrootseconomics.org
If you are in Sonoma County, join our co-creation circle. https://peaceprofits.sutra.co/circle/q54qn/circles
