(image courtesy of cfaulk.org)
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WHAT EXACTLY IS THE “OTHER”?
Anthropologist Marshall Sahlins reminds us that “modern capitalist societies, however richly endowed, dedicate themselves to the proposition of scarcity. Inadequacy of economic means is the first principle of the world’s wealthiest peoples.”
The shortage is due not to how much material wealth there actually is, but to the way in which it is exchanged or circulated. The market system artificially creates scarcity by blocking the flow between the source and the consumer.
What the indigenous people call a Windigo Economy.
If scarcity is the current measurement of “value”, then it can and will be redistributed. Once that happens, then it becomes a matter of personal ownership and responsibility. Then we can entertain the options of resource equality first, rather than its side effects, such as income inequality and racial equity.
As no sociocultural or socioeconomic outcome does not come without a source in economic constraint, it is also the case that no opportunity comes without access to valuable resources - water, food, energy and information - unfettered by mental and physical pollutants, and subversive economic manipulations.
A REBALANCING ACT
All the tools are in place to rebalance the source-cause equation driving the subsequent enslavement of the population in this way, whether we call this a “doughnut economy”, a “circular economy” or previously, a “sharing economy”.
These are concepts that float in the cognitive ether sans applied practices that can be sustained, along with a commitment from each and every human being to literally move the table stakes from an economic class system to one that is based on merit and active participation.
Much of this has to do with financial, healthcare, energy and agricultural systems collapsing under their own deficient weight. This defaults to a decentralization away from the underlying command-and-control functions.
The phase shift towards decentralization itself is a process, not an outcome.
Just as capital is a function of sustenance, not a need imposed upon us, we naturally seek decentralized means for survival.
In other words, capital can be used for good or ill purposes, especially as we remove the shackles of crony corporatism which degrade our institutions, governments and town halls through blatant lobbying and influence peddling. Policies can only reflect the needs of the people - what drives those policies must be the will and ingenuity of the people being represented.
BEYOND MARITIME
People unawakened to the realities of the maritime system (the system that has actually governed us for the last 137 years) will need to lose more of their material wealth before they see this system with real eyes. Then the phase shift advances in accelerated steps. It is a messy, sobering process, as we can now see in fuller breadth.
Trust the process, as it is part of evolution. Evolution does not care about theories, but rather adheres to natural law. When the laws of nature take hold, then human beings align and adapt with change that is necessary, as they have done throughout history.
In doing so, we discover that change is not only necessary, it is a constant wave to be ridden which shows us how to act coherently.
The question it presents us becomes existential: How and what do you want to do to create value that is scarce in its uniqueness, while making that core proposition abundant in its scope, and to manage it responsibly?
Alas, we find ourselves in a new kind of prisoner’s dilemma.
MECHANICS MATTER
The construction contractor cannot possibly build a different home from a competitor in terms of price and quality - building materials for every market participant are exorbitant. He may change locations to build, and yet find that his own construction economics do not change. Less homes are built at the same quality as before, and therefore less homes are available that are affordable in price. And the cycle continues - that is, without a new approach.
Economic mechanics and their respective operating functions do not lie. Decoupled supply chains, hyperinflation on goods and services, and a short sale of fundamental living conditions - fewer places to own and live among them - only show us what is required, which is a renewed commitment to building things that actually serve our fellow men, women and children, with no full scale attachments to debt, to patchwork policies, and the impediments corporations place on our basic ways of living and working.
As important are the resource considerations that must be made when economic actors not only share resources, but actually create resources to share.
If there is an enemy among us, it is the multinational corporation, which acts as a person who only seeks to remove our civil rights and to buy up our resources in the endless pursuit of competitive control and profit.
BOTTOMING OUT TO PROSPER WITHIN
There is no denying this reality any longer.
In order to replace this reality, we know what is required. And now is the time to address our market economies as places of real human and environmental resource needs.
Are you up to the task?
If you are, there is only an upward trajectory. The “bottoming out” of our values, our sustenance, our health and our ideologies only seeks to provide us with perspectives that put us at odds with ourselves and each other, to which we surrender what no longer serves us and replace it with something else, something bigger than ourselves, and something far more meaningful in terms of what really matters.
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