Tagged with Money

When I ask people what is missing most from their lives, the most common answer is "community." But how can we build community when its building blocks- -- the things we do for each other -- have all been converted into money? (more)

Money is woven into our minds, our perceptions, our identities. That is why, when a crisis of money strikes, it seems that the fabric of reality is unraveling, too—that the very world is falling apart. Yet this is also cause for great optimism, because money is a social construction that we have the power to change. What new kinds of perceptions, and what new kinds of collective actions, would accompany a new kind of money?  – The fourth installment from Sacred Economics: Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition. (more)

Why should money be the root of all evil? After all, the purpose of money is, at its most basic, simply to facilitate exchange — in other words, to connect human gifts with human needs. What power, what monstrous perversion, has turned money into the opposite: an agent of scarcity? – The third installment from Sacred Economics: Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition. (more)

My intention is that by identifying the core features of the economics of Separation, we may be empowered to envision an economics of Reunion, an economics that restores to wholeness our fractured communities, relationships, cultures, ecosystems, and planet. – The second installment from Sacred Economics: Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition. (more)

Community is impossible in a highly monetized society since community is woven from gifts. Intimacy comes from co-creation, not co-consumption. We must do more than simply get people together: we need to create together. Creating gift circles can reduce our dependence on the traditional market and help us transition to a co-creative partnership of interdependence. (more)

Even before we have printed a single note, everywhere we go in Baltimore people have already heard of the BNote, and businesses are signing on to accept them when we launch next year. We are finding that people are very receptive to the idea of an alternative economic system – one that will benefit people instead of corporations. (more)

From at least the time that Jesus threw the moneychangers from the temple, we have sensed that there is something unholy about money. At the same time, no one can deny that money has a mysterious, magical quality as well, the power to alter human behavior and coordinate human activity. [An RS Encore Presentation] (more)

Money is about the threat of poverty. Poverty gives money value. By threat of poverty, one must work for money, even if that work is destructive. And money is about power backed up by arms and prisons. Poverty, power, and prison are money's soul, flesh, and bones.

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We can evolve our economic system to incorporate values long overlooked in the world of commerce. Beauty, healthy relationships and community are high on the list to be included in our new myth of economics and money. (more)

Economic abstractions keep functioning only so long as actual goods and services exist to be bought and sold. The movement toward abstraction goes so far that the concrete realities are neglected. In the end the realities trickle away unnoticed, until a shock of some kind strikes the tower of abstractions built atop the void the realities once filled, and the whole structure tumbles to the ground. (more)

If the global economy were broken up into local units, would there be any need for national governments? Would it not make more sense for governments to scale down to the size of the economic units? The decentralization and democratization of the exchange process can only be achieved through traders establishing their own mutual credit clearing circles and independent private and community currencies. (more)

While England and the other European nations saw exploitation as the natural scheme of things, America’s founders had a more enlightened understanding of how to thrive without exploiting or being exploited. What if each nation had a mission for maximizing happiness in the world, in its own unique way? (more)

Tonight, twenty cities will explore workable alternatives to the current economic paradigm at our Evolver Spore, "Beyond Money: What Comes Next? Find your local gathering or start your own (more)

Media ecologist Douglas Rushkoff tells how the corporation has made us over into its own image, and how we can take it back. He also illuminates the Dark Ages, reveals why there's a God on our money, and explains what we're really buying into when we buy that mortgage. (more)

The tidal wave of globalization smashes all but the biggest boats. Local communities can regain control over their own welfare by encouraging human solidarity and private, voluntary initiative and creativity. The first step is to organize regional mutual credit clearing associations. (more)

In 2004 Billionaires for Bush took to the streets with slogans like "Blood for Oil," "Free the Enron 7," and "Corporations are People, Too." Intentionally or not, we tapped into what you might call the economic unconscious, or the mythic dimension of money. (more)

We are watching a financial meltdown, but what's dying is not business itself, but a financial parasite. The future actually looks brighter unencumbered by an investment industry that is a drag on business. (more)

It is time to enter into a new story, and a new kind of money that embodies it. We are in the midst of a transition parallel to an adolescent's transition into adulthood, when physical growth ceases, and vital resources turn inward to foster growth in other realms. (more)

The Twelve Tribes were funky Christian Marxists who "worked like capitalists, but divided the money like communists." Although they had each taken a vow of poverty, they somehow managed to have "an abundance of everything."

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