Tag Archives: Thrive Economy

Boomers, Revolution, Politics

Posted in Change the World, Environmental, Opinion, People Power, Uncategorized by

I’m an old hippie boomer and never really stopped being a hippie. Nor did many of my friends. And everywhere I’ve lived I’ve pretty much wound up with a bunch of friends who were hippies in the day and/or live like hippies now. So many of the slurs the millenials keep tossing about boomers feel like they’re talking about some other group.

From that time forward I’ve been left of democrats in my leanings. Never particularly identified with another party like Socialist or Green, but my political sensibilities were shaped by the protest days and, most especially, Oscar Lange’s On the Economic Theory of Socialism. So my perspective favors the systems places like Denmark and Sweden have created. And I delight that in millenials we finally have a group that gets the political/economic ideas we embraced so long ago.

Voting for me through all these years has been just kind of practical, vote for the least bad kind of thing. My evaluation through all the years has been that corporate influence is too strong to really “revolutionize” the government and too large a portion of the populace has not understood the more liberal viewpoints, so it has long seemed the best we could do was not to have the Republican — and indeed it has proved to be true that Republicans have always made inequality, climate issues, etc. worse and Democrats have always improved those some but never beyond what corporate overlords could accept.

I like the push for Democratic Socialism but I still see too many in government controlled by corporate sponsors (and let’s save discussion of corporate lobbyists controlling way too many watchdog agencies that are supposed to be regulating them for a whole other post). I’m encouraged by the many Democrats running without corporate help and with more Democratic Socialist platforms. This change is heartening and we need to give it momentum. But it’s also time to get outside the box and quit thinking that changing some officeholders will change the fundamentals.

Unlike much of what I read from the millenials, I don’t see it as likely we can shift the government as radically as we need to in the short time frame we have to turn climate change around. For some time I’ve been questioning the degree to which most of us in America have fallen into the habit of expecting government to “save” us and assuming if we just change some people in Congress or change the President, we will be delivered from harm. I think we need to be more rad.

Many years of study and observation lead me to believe that government will not change sufficiently or fast enough to save us. We need People Power. I’ve laid a lot of this out in the People Power series but want to include some thoughts again here.

In much of the world corporations are really running governments like puppet masters. While there’s increasing awareness of this truth, most people still want government to save us from this power. Right now, government works for corporations and throws enough sops to the rest of us to get the votes they need.  GOVERNMENT IS NOT GOING TO SAVE US.  Take that in.  It’s time we understand this truth.

While we also need to work on voting in people who haven’t taken corporate money, the two main things I see as grass roots necessities: (1) massive boycotts and (2) a huge wave of going local; starting co-ops for banking, manufacturing, food production, etc. that are run by the people for the people and employing the people.

Two percent of the people are hoarding vast amounts of wealth and acting as though the other 98% are expendable. It’s a very weird way of looking at us when our buying dollars provide the bulk of their profits. Without us buying their stuff, booking their hotel rooms, eating their food products, etc. they can’t make a profit.  The truth of this is finally hitting now in the Covid-19 pandemic and the government still can’t get it that it’s not the 2 percent they need to save. Without us out there buying, businesses are feeling the pinch (though the super rich owners and CEOs are untouched so far).

I’ve been calling for massive consumer boycotts for a long time and running around talking about how we really vote with our dollars and few have really been listening. I find it kind of funny that the Universe has basically ordered up a massive consumer boycott without anybody actually deciding to have one. Now we need to keep it up when we’re allowed to get out again.

Thirty-four years ago when I started practicing yoga and taking the Yoga Journal, then becoming interested in metaphysics and flipping through magazines like New Age Journal (now Body and Soul), etc. I began to notice a whole secondary economy in their pages.  Health foods, yoga props, meditation retreats, herbal supplements, etc. Companies you never heard about nor, in those days, ever saw on the shelves of a mainstream grocery or drugstore. Companies with healthier products and often a healthier way of doing business.

Over the years those companies have often become more known.  Some went down the dark path — Whole Foods, for instance became a corporate monster long before Amazon took over. And many more companies have been added to the list. For the most part all these places still advertise in magazines and on web sites that cater to those who are into healthy and/or spiritual lifestyles and this other economy is still under the radar.

More recently I’ve been following a more recent and quietly grown trend for forming local co-ops. From neighborhoods taking back an old shuttered business district and supporting small local enterprises, to co-op banks owned by and serving Blacks or women or poor neighborhoods to farming co-ops, etc. across the world a movement of creating local businesses that operate for local people has been spreading.

It’s been going on for long enough there are now studies showing they are making good profits, employing lots of people and paying them better in both wages and benefits. Again, mostly under the radar though if you hunt for it you can find scattered articles. (I’ve listed the People Power posts below — many links to articles and sources there) A Thrive Economy serves better than a Growth Economy.

I see this quiet growth of a whole tier of businesses operating differently, quietly in the background as our best answer and hope. We need more of it. We need the younger progressives who are excited about change to leap on the bandwagon of going local. We need to have so many products, supplies, banking opportunities, supply chains, etc. that are both supplying consumer needs and providing jobs that we can increasingly do business only with local outfits and stop buying from corporations.

We have to be the ones to break corporate power because government is not going to do it.

I love seeing lots of enthusiasm for progressive candidates and causes from the younger generations and I hope they keep working on those things. But I also hope a huge number can be persuaded to launch themselves into a local movement. While I know plenty of older hippies who are participating in local co-op type efforts and pushing for buying local, we’re kind of old for being the founders of banking co-ops and small manufacturing plants, etc.  We need you.  And I know I can speak not only for myself but for so many people I know, we’ll do anything we can to help you.

It’s time for a quiet, under-the-radar revolution in which we seize power by taking our dollars away from the global corporate giants and put them into businesses that serve us and the needs of our communities. It isn’t just getting “them” to pass progressive policies. We have to seize the reins and create the progressive roads.

The People Power posts — in these posts you’ll find many links to articles and studies:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

@ProudResister @davidhogg111 @WilliamMMcKee @OurProgressive @eve_levenson @EdwardJDavey @marwilliamson @ewarren

 

People Power: The do-ers

Posted in Being Peace, Change the World, Environmental, Uncategorized by

The Three Key Paths: The Do-ers

 

Many in our society snort contemptuously upon hearing people are praying.  They think it’s useless and consider it “doing nothing.”  “You have to DO something,” they tell us.  At this point in history we don’t have time to convert the disbelievers, they just need to have some constructive things to do [though I’ll plant the thought expressed by Charles Eisenstein in The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible, that often our rush to “doing” is ill-informed and at best maintains the status quo and at worst actually winds up causing harm].  See previous post on whether praying IS something.

A number of these People Power posts have explored the importance of “going local”.  For that we need increasing numbers of people on the ground who are forming environmental justice groups, creating small-scale local manufacturing, growing organic healthy produce and finding ways to market it, building co-ops for banking, local businesses, health services, etc.

As long as a relatively small number of global corporations hold most of the wealth and mind-boggling amounts of power, environmental and humanitarian crises will become ever more rampant.  To save the planet and to help ALL people to thrive we have to get out from under their control.

Two crucial steps are required to accomplish this.  (1) Quit buying their stuff.  Without profits we provide them, their power disappears.  You vote with every dollar you spend.  Pay attention to how you’re voting.  (2) Since we will still need food, clothing, etc. we need local enterprises to provide us with goods and services and also to replace the jobs that will be lost as big corporations fail.

In Buddhism’s Eightfold Path, I think several branches apply here: Right Livelihood, Right Intent, and Right Action.  The idea is that we do no harm and try to benefit others in everything we do.  Obeying Right Livelihood means making money by only working for or investing in places that are also obeying the rules of Right Action, etc.  Obeying Right Action means you make decisions about buying, selling, and what to do in life based on doing no harm and whenever you can helping others and/or the world.  Right Intent means coming from a place of compassion and heartfulness in every step you take.

To me, there is no way to be in alignment with these paths while working for, investing in, or purchasing from major corporations that harm the environment, treat workers badly, produce harmful items, etc.  A major path of doing therefore involves boycotting those companies and helping to create alternative means of employment and production that operate to bring health, thriving, and sustainability to all.

Another reminder of some new thinking on economics — the idea of a “Thrive Economy” instead of a Growth one, which I think will wind up reflecting the thought that much more needs to be local:

I’ve really been contemplating this and just in my own life I can see it’s very hard to boycott until local alternatives are more prevalent.  I buy a lot from Amazon.  I’d rather not do business with it.  But most of what I buy is only available to me now in other equally yucky corporations.  And to buy from those places I have to drive (environmentally bad as well) to parts of town I loathe, cope with the worst traffic areas, and wander around in overly big stores filled with largely unhappy people.  Right now, Amazon’s free delivery wins.

I shop a fair amount at our local food co-op and also Trader Joe’s, which so far I consider to be a good company, and I need to do more with the local farmer’s market.  But many other things I buy are simply not available as local goods.  Much activity is needed to create viable manufacturing and marketplaces in local areas.

Environmentally speaking there are many actions do-ers can take.  I keep touting Project Drawdown — there are many innovations that individuals or neighborhood groups could adopt and much inspiration for figuring out new ways to help.  If that’s your main interest, plenty of things to do, starting with QUIT BUYING FROM GLOBAL CORPORATIONS.

For do-ers there are also contributions in the land of government and elections but that is for the third post in this concluding (or maybe not 🙂 ) series.

Okay do-ers, there’s your to-do list.  Go forth!

Previous People Power posts;

 

People Power: Climate, Our Part and the Elephants in the Room

Posted in Change the World, Current Events, Environmental, Uncategorized by

As the talk about climate change escalates I keep glancing at plans, suggestions, demands, etc. and making mental notes about what massive change would really entail.  The main things I keep seeing are (1) we the ordinary people have a much bigger role to play than most “change” advocates seem to acknowledge and (2) the massive shift we need will have much greater consequences to the world economy than is generally being discussed.

First, I see a world in which governments for the most part are broken.  Corruption and ties to big money have so infiltrated governments everywhere, I find it odd so many environmental advocates are still calling for governments to do something.  Really, what on earth about how they operate leads anyone to believe they would?

Until we can make sweeping changes in who is elected — keeping corporate money out of the electoral process altogether — democratic governments are not going to pass laws that hamstring global corporations.  And even if we can elect politicians with no such ties, let’s be realistic.  If global corporations are reined in to the necessary degree, massive economic issues, including widespread layoffs and falling profits will result.  No elected politician wants to preside over such a potentially cataclysmic shift.

I’m not saying the process doesn’t also need help from government, but because they’re unlikely to change so radically in the short time frame we need, I think it is going to be regular people working locally along with municipal and maybe state or provincial governments that will create the faster changes we need.

Politicians who discuss “the Green New Deal” or climate change more globally are by and large stepping around the issues of failing corporations and falling GNPs.  They don’t want to say out loud what the real impact of making radical change may have. The youth who are striking often seem to me to be a little naive when it comes to understanding the likely results of the degree of revolutionary change they demand — as did the “radical revolutionaries” of the Viet Nam era; the one sticking point that kept me slightly apart.  I’m not saying they’re wrong that we need it, but I also see you have to face this issue as a probable outcome.

I’m seeing a lot of movement toward more local solutions.  As I’ve mentioned, the world wide co-op movement is very heartening.  It’s been going on long enough I’m seeing studies showing they’re making profits, employing a lot of people and paying them better, etc.  They also allow women and people of color to get a fair shake.

Clearly there are already people who see this is the way to go.  I just think we need a wider-spread consciousness about the need to quickly form local co-ops (or similar) for everything from banking to manufacturing to farming to housing, etc. See previous post for more on co-ops.

What I don’t see is enough individuals advocating on how much WE have to change.  The U.S. is the worst as far as over-consuming.  Our citizens need to step it up more than most pundits are telling them and quit the constant buying.  The assumption that women need a 150 square foot closet and more than enough clothes to fill it needs to stop.  Buying a new computer or cell phone every time a small change in technology comes out needs to stop.  Driving gas-guzzling SUVs needs to stop.  Buying food you don’t need and throwing it away needs to stop.

In my lifetime we’ve moved from a society in which many families had one car and men formed carpools at work so wives and children had the car some days and not others to a society in which every body in the family has at least one vehicle.  We should be demanding expanded public transportation and driving fewer cars instead of more.

No one — especially no politician — wants to tell people they MUST dramatically change their lifestyles especially regarding consuming habits.  Generally speaking the population is resistant to being told big changes must be made .  But this time we have to be agents of change.  Part of that change is also to remake governments to serve the people, but till we do, we’re the best hope we have.

And if we all really start cutting back as much as we must, sales fall, profits decrease, corporations downsize and lay people off, etc.  Some will go out of business.  We should also be using consumer boycotts to express our wrath at their destructive practices and the same consequences are likely.

We need to have a plethora of local opportunities ready to hire displaced workers.  Some places are working on plans where the shift to more sustainable plans and programs includes many new jobs.  We’re talking about a shifting of business and jobs on a scale never seen by the world.

We need to shift to a Thrive Economy instead of one that always grows bigger:

It’s time for us to be poring through Project Drawdown to see which solutions we could support with funding, which solutions we could work on in groups or alone, whether new ideas can be spun from the many offered there.
Paul Hawken_edited
Government as it is constituted right now isn’t going to accomplish this for us.  It’s up to us.  What can we do to shift the mentality from grow to thrive?  How can we start businesses and co-ops operating to thrive while being sustainable?  What are WE going o do to save the world?