For a few years, before I decided to participate in my year-long non-monetary lifestyle experiment, I mulled over this concept of what I’ve come to call ABC2 Economics. I called it the WeBMaP at the time. In my mind, it only seemed right to find a more balanced solution to our financial predicament by realizing the interconnectedness of the online network through the capacity to chart the directional flow of information toward our roles as Artists, Businesses, Citizens, and Community members. While I know that much of economics consists of particulars and vagaries that I will probably never allow myself to understand, I believe that the essence of ABC2 Economics is simple enough to at least allow money to flow where it needs to.
Our problem is not a matter of making money. There is plenty of money that has already been made. Unfortunately, every time more money is printed, so does rising debt coincide with it, calling for yet more money. So this little kerfuffle has left us running up a total debt of 247 trillion dollars worldwide while we’ve only made 90 trillion dollars in actual money to pay it with.
Since an invisibile hand is somehow dealing with that, our problem isn’t that we haven’t enough money. Apparently, we just imagine that into being when we need it anyway. Our problem is that we have an improper and unhealthy circulatory system.
Consider the microcosm of humanity as a human body. If we are to assume that money is the means through which humanity receives what it needs, its corollary would be the blood. As the blood flows to the various organs, the organs do not hoard the blood, but take what they need to function efficiently and let the blood continue to flow. When the blood is not allowed to flow, the body becomes unhealthy.
Humanity has become unhealthy because many parts of it have ceased to let money flow. Were our bodies to act like humanity as a whole, our liver would be thinking about what’s in it for him and not be concerned with what the heart needed, and the lungs would give no credence to the spleen. If our bodies were to act like this, it would not take long for them to shut down completely.
If humanity continues to act like this, operating under the pretense that we are separate from one another and must take from others in order to thrive, instead of realizing our unity and the karmic principles of caring for one another in order to be cared for, how long before we shut down? How long can we survive viewing ourselves as merely competitors instead of collaborators?
Money does exist in the world. In the United States alone, there is over $1.22 trillion in supposed circulation, and $1.17 trillion of that is in Federal Reserve Notes. The problem is that with the competitive mentality that has been cultivated through our limited economic mindset, as with all games which necessitate winners and losers, the majority of the spoils have gone to the winners of the game, thereby out of reach for the rest of us losers.
Would that we could transcend our relentless need for competition in this needless “survival of the fittest” game of chance, we could see all of humanity as worthy of health, security, and stability. We could choose to see every person as the asset they are instead of the mere consumers we have myopically come to regard them as. We may find that our economy, our true core economy, is much more abundant than we have been led to believe.
I have come around to realizing the need for money in order to continue on with this thing called “civilization.” It is a necessary tool for participating in a society submerged in the doubt, mistrust, and fear that has been cultivated through this competitive mindset. Although our most popular form of money is emblazoned with the epitaph “In God We Trust,” we as a people haven’t enough faith to go without it quite yet.
I welcome the use of money into my life, and I will be thoroughly exploring how to do that more effectively in the coming years. Through whatever means it flows to me, it will flow out toward Artistry, Business, Citizenry, and Community. My hope is to connect with people who are willing to work collaboratively in order to let our wealth circulate in a healthier fashion by equipping artificial intelligence with the use of human intelligence.
May we incite a revolution of wisdom.
