Day 2 - The money market
Saturday, November 23
Money might well be the opposite of abundance. Money by definition means: scarcity. There's never enough money around to satisfy everyones needs. Or maybe there is, but it sure isn't equally distributed! No fair share ethics here...
Our history with money goes back further than the written word. It emerged in a time when people started to live in settlements and practice agriculture. Instead of living as part of nature, people now had the "luxury" of surplus. Harvests of staple crops, predominantly grains, could be stored during winter and used for trading goods with other settlements. This allowed communities to stay in one place, as long as harvests didn't fail. Trade routes were established and wars were waged. Settlements turned into strongholds, to keep the bandits out that didn't like to work for their meals. Then strongholds turned into kingdoms, kingdoms into empires...
Along with this process, money also evolved. It was the perfect glue to tie all these developments together. Money made it possible to impose taxes on the population, in return for protection and infrastructure. Money allowed for much more complex trading relations, which meant that people gained access to things from faraway places. Money, in short, gave birth to civilization.
These civilizations came and went, often collapsing because they depended too much on a limited resource (forests, grains). Fast forward a few thousand years, and we find ourselves now living in what I would call late stage industrial civilization. We have become fully dependent on the combination of manufactured goods and fossil fuels to survive. The industrial revolution, married to the capitalist economic system, is based on extraction, scarcity and competition. It devours entire ecosystems with its endless appetite for natural resources and economic growth.
When the last tree has been cut down, the last fish caught, the last river poisoned, only then will we realize that one cannot eat money.
This is obviously not sustainable. So whether we choose to change our course (the preferred option) or let nature fix it for us (not so advisable), industrial civilization will eventually end. We are heading towards a Great Turning, where we need to find new ways of living that are not just sustainable, but regenerative. Grow Back Better. But this will take time. And during this transition period, we will still depend on industrial materials (looking at you, cellphone). And, of course: money.
So it seems we can't live with money, and we can't live without it?
How do we navigate this?
What is our relationship with money?
How can we make money, without being enslaved by it?
And how can we make investments, without destroying the natural world?
These questions, we explore on Day 2. Please note: these are not the only activities these days! We'll also be working in the garden and/or joining one of the various side tracks.
On Day 3, we will zoom in and focus on our own projects and communities.