At the heart of learning how to transform our beautiful Earth back to its original overflowing abundance, we must transform our understanding of energy, and how it circulates. Which means that we must concern ourselves with what is called “economics,” and for us, in 2013, that means how money presently “works.” Or, I should say, how money has reached the End Game of the how it’s worked in the past.
Here’s an otherwise interesting article in which the author worries that the growing invisible economy of internet-spurred microentrepeneurs doesn’t spur “economic growth.”
The Rise of Invisible Work
The article maps an old framework onto the new, emergent reality, so no wonder it doesn’t fit.
Meanwhile, Vandana Shiva tells it like it is. (I put the very last phrase of this excerpt in bold. Ponder it. And read the entire article for examples.)
How Economic Growth Has Become Anti-Life
Excerpt:
Limitless growth is the fantasy of economists, businesses and politicians. It is seen as a measure of progress. As a result, gross domestic product (GDP), which is supposed to measure the wealth of nations, has emerged as both the most powerful number and dominant concept in our times. However, economic growth hides the poverty it creates through the destruction of nature, which in turn leads to communities lacking the capacity to provide for themselves.
The concept of growth was put forward as a measure to mobilise resources during the second world war. GDP is based on creating an artificial and fictitious boundary, assuming that if you produce what you consume, you do not produce. In effect, “growth” measures the conversion of nature into cash, and commons into commodities.
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If you haven’t yet, do read Sacred Economics, by Charles Eisenstein, a comprehensive view of the history of money, the emergent transformation of the philosophical foundation for money, various types of money that do not “convert nature into cash and commons into commodities,” and the vibrant gifting economy that results.
