Discuss: Building an Anti-Economy

Please note that academic researchers have been exploring these types of “new” economic interactions for some time. I would encourage you and your readers to explore the works of J.K. Gibson-Graham (a collaborative effort of two), including “A Postcapitalist Politics” as well as their and others’ essays on “diverse” or “alternative” economies.

Dear Chris Carlsson,

The road ahead will not be an easy one, I suppose, precisely because the mistakes our not-so-great generation of elders are making now simply cannot be repeated by our children. Thankfully, new leaders are emerging. Some have called this phenomenon the appearance of “transformational” leadership. That is also what I am observing.

The unrestricted consolidation of filthy lucre and political/military power, the unbridled expansion of economic globalization, the unrestrained per-capita overconsumption of limited resources and the unchecked human overpopulation on the relatively small, evidently finite and noticeably frangible planetary home God blesses us to inhabit, could soon become unsustainable. Perhaps the humane, reasonable, sensible and wise regulation of these activities will make make it possible for the family of humanity to build a patently sustainable, distinctly human world order, one that adequately enough models key biological systems and physical structures of Earth.

New leaders with new ideas are coming forward. A new day is dawning. My hope is for members of our generation to become helpfully engaged by openly acknowledging and effectively addressing the challenges presented to humankind rather than by perversely mounting a “rear-guard action” in denial of looming, human-driven threats to human wellbeing and environmental health.

Chris, thanks always for sharing your perspective.

Sincerely,

Steve

Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on the Human Population,
established 2001

Perhaps it is time for the same ol’ business-as-usual, pin-stripe-suited leaders, the ones who adamantly espouse and religiously exemplify an apostate’s creed of greed, to be replaced by new leadership.

Too many leaders of this patently unsustainable culture of avarice evidently define the culture’s efficacy by the endless accumulation of material possessions; by the unbounded acquisition of more money, money, money, money; by recklessly overconsuming and relentlessly hoarding limited resources. They demonstrably declare to all the world that greed is good.

Are we not members of a culture that worships consumerism? Are the products of greed nothing more or less than the objects of our idolatry?

Are the pin-striped suits, fleet of cars, chauffeur, private jets, McMansions, distant hideaways, secret handshakes and exclusive clubs…... all “signatures” of success in a culture promoted by the ‘goodness’ of greed?

Consider for a moment what perversity greed has wrought.

Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?contentid=1176

Peoples are continuously recognizing the degradation inherent in business relations and creating networks of activity that refuse the measurement of money.The new apparatus of global production helps speed up the extension of market society, but it inevitably also speeds the spread of social opposition, the sharing of experiments and alternatives.

Very important! For globalization, especially as manifested in the mobility of capital, can’t survive without predictability, neither can the “elite,” c.f. Lasch’s, “Revolt of The Elite,” survive without predictability (predictability of maintaining its “Myths of Dominance,” c.f. Walter Wink’s quadrilogy. In short, predictability sources elitism as well as, in paradox, its revolt.

Good article!  Self-organizing is the only way to start.  And besides self=organizing is “organic”
  Check out WISER;  http://www.wiserearth.org for all kinds of levels of connection and help in the
re-organizing.
Let’s change Pogo’s famous maxim to: “We have met the ally, and he is us.”

I have been working in the anti-economy after going to college to earn a bachelor’s in business in 2008. What I learned is that business as usual is still being taught and that ideas such as local production, sustainable manufacturing based on actual demand curves versus the artificial demand curve of manufacturing to the last penny profit are not yet embraced by our Universities.

Instead of returning to my jewelry manufacturing business as before, I now use only recycled raw materials such as mine waste, cutting waste and sea glass as source materials. I do not actively market and instead spend my time caring for my elderly parents so they may continue to live in our family home, help my son understand business ethics for his small organic garden farm and help my daughter with her young family.

Yes, recycling and making homemade bread and composting takes time, but by lowering my consumption far below the American average I am able to spend my personal capital of time on more important sustainable ways of living. I am able to remake clothing sewing by hand and mend those items I already own to keep them out of the landfill all while keeping out of the corporate malls buying new clothes. I am one of the best dressed people I know and since style has nothing to do with fad or passing fashion I can build on the myriad choices of quality items available to me through friends clothes swaps and thrift stores. Using the Pareto rule I realized that in fact I do wear 20% of my clothes 80% of the time, so I recyle the other 80% leaving me with more space in my closet and less things to maintain in my life.

We are all leaders in the Nowtopia movement. Each time we say no to consuming impractical items and question our capitalist consumption upbringing we are leading ourselves into a brave new and improved lifestyle. I have had the wonderful opportunity to live a scaled back life with little cash and numerous options using my wit, my hands and my knowledge. Getting off the wage earning mentality was the most freeing experience yet! I recommend it highly.

With the realization that the very survival of humankind and life as we know it could be put at risk soon, somehow we have to find ways and means of engaging one another and the broader human family in discussions like this one that at least provide an opportunity to reasonably and sensibly connect the unsustainability of global overconsumption, overproduction and overpopulation activities of the human species with the ecological realities of the finite and frangible planet we inhabit. One way or another, we have to find the means of opening the way for ideas, policies and programs that lead us to “sustainable progress” and to effective designs for practicable business enterprises as well as for the construction of viable human communities in our planetary home.