by Charles Hugh Smith, Of Two Minds:

Reversing from exploited division to creative and healthy solidarity will need to be the mantra and guiding principle going forward if we the people are to take back our economy.

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by my friend and colleague Zeus Yiamouyiannis, Ph.D., who has contributed essays to Of Two Minds since 2009.

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In the last essay I remarked that through a combination of internal pressures (disenchantment and material hardship) and external pressures (Covid-19 and catastrophic concentration of global wealth), Americans were going to have to learn to break trust with the promises of a rigged and unsustainable American Dream, decline participation in its mandates (i.e. “patriotic buying” and slaving away in dead-end jobs), and actively rebel against the system by withdrawing energy, money, and work and putting it into new, fairer, more democratic, and more creative systems.

Threats by the big guys of ruining your credit, or you missing out on the next big thing don’t mean much when the emerging reality is leading AWAY from the proffered promises of a future material heaven.

All empires fall, without exception, and they fall for many of the same reasons–corruption of the original founding ideal, loss of creativity, boredom, lack of concern for others, and an indoctrination that demands no virtues or qualities of ultimate value from its citizens.

I talked about all the ways we can unplug from “Big Everything”, but what about plugging into SMALL everything? Charles Hugh Smith has already devoted a good part of his writing toward discussing what this might look like. But let’s start the conversation again in light of Covid-19.

What have we learned about what we can do without? What have we learned about what we WANT to do without? What might we do for ourselves, and what wider trends might this generate?

In my book, Transforming Economy: From Corrupted Capitalism to Connected Communities, I talked about moving from an instrumentally-focused economy run on human capital, materialism, and scarcity toward an intrinsically-focused economy run on relationship capital, non-scarce resources, and non-material goods. I also talked about moving from a possession culture to an experience culture. Quality of life is NOT based on material, though escape from misery IS!

Research shows that beyond a modicum of material wealth necessary to support basic living and a few extras, happiness is NOT increased with additional wealth. Beyond a basic minimum, material more IS NOT BETTER. This goes against a major commandment of consumerist culture. However, I propose, that MORE IS BETTER for non-material qualities like love, friendship, and, yes, COMMUNITY.

COMMUNITY

When we wake up from our various Facebook stupors, we realize how much of our lives are mediated by the meaning frames and profit-motives of others, who are simply manipulating our participation and emotions for THEIR ends. It may be uncomfortable to consider, but what happens when we do unplug from that and re-awaken real community exchange rather than abstract “tribes” that “like” everything, but stand for nothing?

To this end, my wife, Regina and I, are attempting to put together a forum from her wildly diverse community of people interested in alternative media/knowledge connected with her website. This is being done alongside attempts to forge concrete connections with neighbors. The former satisfies the desire to avidly explore areas of interest, and the latter mutual bonds of trust and civic exchange (not necessarily requiring shared interest).

Community focus has a way of stimulating one’s own direct, concrete, productive engagement with original, authentically-generated economy. Whether it is discussion forums (exchanging the fruits of ideas) or farmers markets (exchanging the fruits from our trees), we come to know ourselves in relation with real others with real cares, hopes, and dreams and not through a haze of identity politics.

I don’t share much in terms of political or religious alignment with my nearby neighbors. A good many are Christian fundamentalists and Trump supporters, but I can (and do try to) generate good will with fruit box drop-offs, having conversations while walking dogs, and hiring their kids for jobs around the orchard.

We have noticed an explosion of family activity, walking, biking, and canoeing that was so pronounced in the wake of the Covid-19 television sports shutdown, that local bike shops ran out of bikes, and had additional bikes on back-order months in to the future! That’s not a bad thing! More local families have started organizing and participating in outdoor games and sports, rather than splitting up and watching them on TV alone in their houses.

CASH

Community offers a potentially highly effective and informal exchange of good will (which seems to be an immensely SCARCE resource these days), but what of more concrete, measured exchange? What about local currency (shared local monetary units), time banking (shared work exchanges), peer lending (shared enterprise funding), and volunteered, shared expertise and tools (shared talent)?

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