The Way Out

 

We all know the economy can’t grow enough to pull us out of the mess we’re in.  But economic growth has been the solution for so long that we assume that it’s the solution now.  It's time to explore alternatives to economic growth.

We’ve taught ourselves that the value of anything can be measured in dollars.  Corollaries:
1.       With enough money, you can have everything/anything you want
2.       Money is power.

What this means is that people with lots of money are powerful.  And so it’s no wonder that things are the way they are.  People with lots of money are literally vested in the economy.  It is in their best interest to maintain the idea that money and power are equivalent.

In our world today, the connection between money and power is not an illusion: it is real.  But it doesn’t have to be.  The key to getting out of the current crisis is decoupling money from power.  The rich and powerful won’t lead us out of this wilderness.  We must help ourselves, and then we must help those around us.  The goal is to reduce our reliance in the money economy.  The money economy has its place, but it shouldn’t control our lives and dictate every move we make.  Our economy is gravely ill, and yet we rely on it for everything.  Decreasing our reliance on it may help it recover.  But, sadly, the almost universally accepted solution is to make everyone more reliant on the economy.

There’s a limit to personal satisfaction

We use money to gain satisfaction.  The value of something is related to the perceived amount of satisfaction we gain from having/using/consuming/giving it.  But satisfaction requires attention.  And each person has a finite amount of attention.  So there’s a limit to the amount of satisfaction we can experience.  Therefore we don’t need an unlimited amount of money; the key is to appreciate what we have.  Once we no longer have enough attention to appreciate all the things we already have, it’s time to stop accumulating possessions.  Enough is enough!

This idea is radical heresy to economic orthodoxy, which states that economic growth is imperative to our collective survival.  Growing the economy requires increasing production, which requires increasing consumption.  So the idea of individuals self-limiting consumption is a grave threat to the economy.  If the economy were everything, self-limiting of consumption would be a bad thing.  But the economy isn’t everything.

[To be continued...]