To be able to talk about a healthy economy firstly it is necessary to
clarify the true sickness in our current economy. The sickness is not
capitalism, not materialism, not selfishness, not ambition, not inequality. All
these are painful symptoms of a deeper illness: Separation. Really all our culture is profoundly sick of
Separation.
While we mistake the symptom for the real disease, our attempts at
healing it fail just like conventional medicine fails when focused on eliminating
symptoms.
“You cannot dismantle the master’s house using the master’s tools”. The
system cannot be dismantled using for this purpose the same tools of the
system. Peace cannot be built using war as a means. Solidarity cannot be built
by accusing the lack of solidarity in others. So what is this Separation about?
More than an ethical failure or a defect in our civilization, Separation is a story, a narrative, even
an organizational arrangement in our neurons, which implies that we perceive
the Everything through the lens of separation, that is, separated. In this
story, mater and spirit are separated, domestic and wild are separated, city
and nature are separated, and a long list of etceteras.
Fundamentally, the human is conceived as a being separated from all
other beings and separated from the universe. If everything that surrounds me
is “otherness”, obviously the more you have the less there is for me.
Therefore, I might want to make sure you don’t take my part. If we think there
is scarcity, you and I will have to compete, no matter how much we dislike
capitalism, and one of us will not be able to fulfill his/her necessities.
Crucially, our intelligence, our rationality has evolved for millennia
through the story of Separation. For
example, when we want to understand the physiology of an animal, we dissect its
corpse (notice the word dissect), and
we observe part by part. When we want to understand food, we display the list
of ingredients. To complete the information we can include the exact recipe of
its preparation: a list of separated objects, in this case a list of
ingredients and procedures. However, the soup that your grandmother made you
when you were a child, is it really replicable exclusively by a recipe with a
list of ingredients and procedures?
The intelligence based on Separation is the logical, linear form of intelligence
and it corresponds to masculine intelligence (present in men and women alike). Of
course nothing is wrong with it in itself. There is a healthy way of using it;
the key is not to ignore that there exist essential aspects of the Everything
that are lost when we observe it separated. The problem is that today masculine
intelligence is considered as the only form of legitimate intelligence. That is
to say, there is an unbalance in the use of our human intelligence. Feminine
intelligence, in contrast, is circular. It is about observing the Everything
just as it is. Modern science, for example, is specially centered on masculine
intelligence. There is no room for feminine intelligence in science. Suffices
to note that the conventional scientific method has as a fundamental premise
that the observer (the scientist) and the object being observed are separated.
In other words, that there exists an objective reality out there (separated
from the observer) which one can observe impartially, with the appropriate
tools.
Our current economic system is an exclusive expression of masculine
intelligence, in fact an immensely sophisticated expression of this type of
intelligence. It is not stupid at all, as many conclude in despair when facing
its devastating consequences. Being economics and money the priority number one
of our civilization, the brightest minds have been dedicated to answer its
questions. But these questions have always been addressed under the view of
separation and the exclusive use of linear logic. As I said before (and will
repeat several times as this is the main issue to be understood), the system
cannot be dismantled using the tools of the very same system. Our awful economic
system, clearly leading to self-destruction, cannot be changed using only
linear, logical, masculine intelligence. By attempting to do that the best one
could achieve would be a recreation of essentially the same, perhaps a tiny bit
better. The problems we as humanity face today will not be solved in a system
that is a tiny bit better.
That is why there is no political solution; it is not about left versus
right. The issue is not: “get rid of all the corrupted politicians, and then we
will reach an harmonious life”. This is
a key absurd feature deeply rooted in our culture: we need to succeed in the battle against ‘otherness’. Same
thing in agriculture: “when we exterminate all weeds, all unwanted bugs, when
we dominate all forces of nature even the weather, then yes, we will be able to
feed the entire population”. In medicine: "when we have all vaccines, when we exterminate all germs, then we will have health". “When we eliminate all terrorists, all dictators,
then we will have peace”. Can’t you see it? It is not going to happen, ever.
That mentality is typical of the Separated Being. In reality, even if magically
one day would come when all businessmen and corporate executives were honest,
compassionate, respectful of the environment, -listen to me well!- even if that
day arrives, our planetary and economic disaster would not stop!
When we ‘other’ the universe around us, we really ‘other’ part of
ourselves. Any battle with the ouside is an agression perpetrated at oneself.
That is why we need to talk about a Sacred Economy: an economy that is
not built with the tools of the narrative of Separation. Not built with
control, not built with linear logic (although it is fully logic nonetheless),
not built conquering or dominating the opposing forces. It is built including.
It is built expanding the Being, remembering our true nature.
Growth and Debt in
Current Economic System
Allow me to explain briefly, introductorily, the nature of our current
economic system (see a more complete discussion of money in Understanding Money). Every time a central bank prints money, it is issued as debt,
that is, at the end of the term it has to come back to the central bank
increased by the rate of interest. All existing money, in this very moment and
in any given moment, is subject to paying interests. There is no official
currency (that I know of) that escapes this reality.
Economic growth is the increase in monetary economic activity, measured
by the growth of GDP (gross domestic product). GDP is the monetary value of all
final goods and services produced in a period. In few words, the only way in
which existing money can pay back its interest rate is by printing more money,
which is again issued as debt. The only way in which this process can subsist
over time is that the rate of economic growth be equal or superior to the
interest rate. If there is not enough economic growth, it means debt cannot be
repaid in its totality, which means somebody goes bankrupt, be it individuals,
institutions or entire countries.
Why are financial crises so common nowadays? Because it is becoming
harder and harder to find some resource or some human activity that can be
transformed into monetary activity. An intact forest does not show up in GDP, it
is not an economic activity that helps service the debt; if harvested, now it
is. Any human activity, as long as it is within gratuity, or reciprocity, does
not show up in GDP. But if transformed in monetary activity, now it does help to
repay the debt.
Economic growth is in reality the transformation of our natural,
cultural, social and spiritual capital into monetary commercial activities.
When for the most part our capital has been already monetarized, it is ever
harder, more costly and more painful to transform into money that which should
not belong to anyone, and at the same time it belongs to everybody. That is why
the financial crisis coexists with the environmental crisis and the crisis of
the human soul.
How much longer can an economy go with exponentially growing debt and
economic activity virtually stagnant? How much longer can nature endure the
growing pressure to exhaust what remains? How much longer can the heart of each
one of us put up with the destruction of beauty and the growing ugliness, the
alienation, the heaviness of having to “earn your life”, to “make a living”,
and sacrifice your dreams? No doubt, not much longer.
Be it right or left wing the government in office, be it a big and rich
country, or a small and poor country, none escapes the necessity of growing
economically. As the pressure of debt keeps rising, the smaller ones (people,
institutions, corporations and countries) go bankrupt and the bigger ones absorb
them, one way or the other. (This is why inequality is endemic to the system). But
evidently this cannot go on like this, not even for the most advantaged.
Sacred Economics
Economics is in its essence the care-taking of our home, the EARTH
(‘Eco’ means home). That is why we all are a bit economists: we are all
interested in the care-taking of our home. We all care in which way we satisfy
our necessities and in which way we express our talents and our gifts that we
have to share.
Sacred is that which holds two characteristics: (1) unique, and therefore
irreplaceable and of infinity value; and (2) connected, related (as opposed to
isolated). For example, an industrial egg bought in a supermarket is not irreplaceable
at all (it is surrounded by thousands identical eggs); and at the same time it
is totally anonymous, it has no connection with the land where it comes from
nor with the people that worked so that it could end up in the supermarket.
Apparently it has no especial story to tell. A free-range non-industrial egg,
which was gifted to me by a neighbor, is clearly the opposite. It has another
value in every sense.
A Sacred Economy takes care of our home, the Earth, in a way that
fosters, rather than suppresses, the presence of the sacred in everything we
experience –in particular, in the way in which we satisfy our needs, and in the
way we express our individual talents.
Money tends to do exactly the opposite: (1) it homogenizes because
almost everything can be transformed into a price, and (2) it disconnects
because as long as I pay it does not matter who is selling it to me nor what
story the object has.
The natural essence of life is the Gift. At the origin of life itself
there was the Gift. Our life started
as a gift, the existence of the planet is a gift, the light and heat of the Sun
are a gift, water is a gift, lemons are a gift from the lemon tree. Our deepest
state of being, the moment in which we feel the happiest and when we are the
most powerful is the moment when we feel with our very guts and all our being
the Gratitude of being alive. From this gratitude arises the unstoppable, unbreakable
wish to do the most beautiful service to Life, sharing our most precious gift
in exchange for what we have received.
If this is the true essence of life, there is no reason why all our
human necessities can’t be satisfied, and all our talents expressed, in the
spirit of the gift. A Sacred Economy is the Economy of the Gift.
A monetary transaction is closed: when the object and its price are
exchanged, the relationship ends. A gift transaction is open: by generating
gratitude, the relationship starts or is nourished. Because a gift always
carries a subtle part of the person that gives it, the object is not easily replaceable.
Certainly, gifting builds community, integration, and union among the people.
An old partner in my life is the anguish in the face of the possibility
of scarcity, the fear to be left without. It eases me to observe it as a pattern,
which is not my essence, which is not what I know in my heart. I believe many
of us share this anguish. Just like we share the pain from the destruction of
nature, or the anguish in millions and millions of people in the world of
having to do something they don’t love in order to “make a living” (and see how
it is less and less sufficient to actually make
a living).
In the heart there is the trust that Life already is a gift, that there
is no need to “make it”. “Do I realize?” ¡I ask myself! That scarcity, that
apparent need of money, how real it is? In the heart there is the generosity,
the enthusiasm and the inspiration of doing whatever it takes to be able to
serve the beauty of life. In the face of the unavoidable fact that the
financial system is headed to collapse, there is no need to be crazy or to be a
hero to trust in life, to stand firmly in our deepest dream.
Every wisdom tradition expresses the same knowledge about the essence of
life: everything is connected, we are all one, everything is related, we are
all family. This is not a moral principle or a superior standard of merit: ¡It
is a reality of Life! If you are part of my being, then when you receive more I
also receive more. There is no way I can loose.
Sacred Economics is about remembering that one came to this life with a
sacred, unique, special purpose. As long as I’m not delivering my highest gift
to life, the life I am living is someone else’s life -the life of a character-
not my real life.
