POETRY & WRITING
Would you rather live in an economy based on taking, or on giving?
Let’s begin with a true story.
It is 2008 at a women’s college softball game in the State of Washington, and a player hits a ball over the fence for a clear home run. However, as she rounds first base, she twists her knee and destroys her ACL so badly she can’t stand up. The umpire will not score this as a run because she has not rounded the bases. Two players of the opposing team pick her up and carry her past second, third, and home, so her run can be counted. 1
This little story raises some important questions.
• What would it take to have this kind of unselfish behavior become the norm instead of a novelty?
• Wouldn’t it require something very fundamental, like a change of consciousness?
• Could such a change of consciousness be achieved?
• If so, how?
• If it were achieved, wouldn’t it mean we could have an economy based on gratitude and giving more than taking, as the Native Americans did?
Classic economic theory maintains that capitalism works so well because it is able to harness everyone’s selfishness in such a way that society at large benefits. In the Wealth of Nations (1776), Adam Smith wrote, "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we can expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."
But human nature isn’t that one-dimensional. We have a generous side too, and we like working for worthwhile goals, whether we get paid or not. There’s a tremendous number of retired people who put in hours and hours as volunteers helping with nonprofit organizations, serving on boards, advising young people, among other things. Think about the volunteer fire departments and ambulance squads in rural towns-–no pay, sometimes dangerous work, but the whole community benefits.
Yes, capitalism has a dynamic vigor and in the more than two centuries since Adam Smith much has been accomplished in the economic sphere. But at the same time human evolution has moved forward and I maintain we are ready to entertain a new dynamic that moves away from self-interest toward cooperation and caring for one another.
There are other examples of a giving economy, or at least one that is not pure taking in the capitalistic sense. In Germany some companies, such as Bosch, have, instead of shareholders, what’s called steward ownership. That means that a foundation owns the company and operates it for the benefit of all stakeholders—customers, distributors, management, and labor. The Mondragon cooperatives in Spain, the largest cooperative system in the world, provides an alternative model that is based on shared interest rather than self-interest. The same is true of many cooperatives such as a very well managed and successful one in the United States—Ocean Spray cranberries.
Margaret Thatcher, the iron lady, was famous for her assertion about capitalism, ”There is no alternative.” This became abbreviated into an acronym TINA and has become capitalist dogma. But it’s not true there are no alternatives, and we could do more to TINA and others. I highly recommend the work of John Fullerton, which introduces the term ”Regenerative Economics“ (also the title of his book). He offers a new paradigm and practical measures that could, for example, rectify the siphoning off and hoarding of assets by those at the top
For our culture to move in this direction would require a change in consciousness. Is it possible to change the consciousness of a nation? Yes, it’s being done right now in China, with brutal determination. But a change of consciousness can be achieved in other ways. For example, the Danish Folk Schools that began in the mid 19th century in Scandinavia, are credited with transitioning Nordic countries from impoverished, unhappy monarchies into the thriving, prosperous, democracies you see there today. Finland, for example, has the best public schools in the world. In a book called The Nordic Secret, authors Anderson and Björkman call for us to affect another seismic transition that will allow young people to meet the challenges of a complex, stressful, high speed society they will face in the age of AI. Such a change could indeed happen. I outline how in my book Beyond Tomorrow.
1 Retif, “The Integration of Sport.”
Christopher Nye
Angels Can Vote
Their streets took some getting used to,
laid out not in grids but in spirals
so that homes and rooms
had curved walls, and going
from place to place was never
a straight line. I wondered about
their beliefs, for example,
that human thoughts affected the weather.
But what knocked the wind out of me
was their democracy.
You see, where these mortals live
angels can vote.
This means that even a cash-
strapped underdog who refuses
to pander, and whose bite
matches his bark, can win.
No cars there.
I was on a bus reading a paper
when I said out loud,
“Holy Mackerel! The vote of a saint
counts more than a million pornographers.”
The woman in the next seat, who
wore a red kerchief and rural shoes,
looked at me. “What is a pornographer?”
I felt explaining would somehow
soil her so I asked her
to explain their elections.
It started when someone asked,
should the vote of a person of principle
count the same as one
who only wants more
of what he already has?
I remembered Tocqueville,
who said, democracy could work
until citizens decided
they could vote themselves
the largesse of the public treasury.
That was his term, largesse.
Later the same day I met
an old man with very kind
blue eyes. Spiritual beings,
he explained, can see motives
as easily as you and I can see
the cat on the windowsill.
During elections they work
really hard because each vote
gets counted first as quantity
by humans, and then
for quality by angels.
Let’s say a man is so ambitious
he’s downgraded his wife and kids
to approximately the importance
of his wardrobe. His computer
won’t recognize that,
but his angel will.
It’s recorded someplace,
not as number, not as text,
but as, maybe call it a color,
even though it isn’t a color.
A couple of spirals over,
the old man continued,
lives a woman with bad teeth,
who cleans other people’s houses.
Let’s just say her husband
turned out to be a disappointment,
but a certain tenacious
love has her staying with him
for the sake of the kids. Her color
ascends higher than the ambitious man’s.
Through data management
at the angelic level her vote
counts for at least three of his.
The kindly old man looked at me
as if to say: is there a better way?
Christopher Nye