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Sacred Economics: Hope for the future?
credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio
Charles Eisenstein is an author, teacher and speaker whose works include the books The Ascent of Humanity, The Yoga of Eating and – most recently – Sacred Economics.
Sacred Economics addresses the morality of the debt-fuelled economic model that requires unsustainable growth and that individuals (or corporations or nations) benefit at the expense of others. Capitalism – the dominant global economic system – is based on competition rather than co-operation, and ultimately fails to address issues like fairness, compassion, the environment and our true nature.
The current economic crisis is not just economic – it is systemic and fundamental. But what is the solution?
From Charles Eisenstein’s homepage:
Sacred Economics traces the history of money from ancient gift economies to modern capitalism, revealing how the money system has contributed to alienation, competition, and scarcity, destroyed community, and necessitated endless growth. Today, these trends have reached their extreme—but in the wake of their collapse, we may find great opportunity to transition to a more connected, ecological, and sustainable way of being.
I came across Eisenstein while reading the Adbusters blog – you know, the activist group that started the whole Occupy Wall Street thing.
Read Sacred Economics online for free here (give a monetary gift if you like).
Watch the short film version of Sacred Economics, made for free by director Ian MacKenzie, below.
Also check out Charles Eisenstein: There is an alternative, written for countercurrents.org and this guest post on Occupy Wall Street for Mark Boyle’s Freeconomy Blog.
Tags: Charles Eisenstein, occupy wall street, Sacred Economics
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