The following is the preface to the book Steve McAlphabet Explains ABC Squared Economics. Find out more.
“You do not need to know precisely what is happenging,
or exactly where it is all going.
What you need is to recognize
the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment,
and to embrace them with courage, faith, and hope.”
– Thomas Merton
When I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (without the hyperactivity) at the age of 29, I decided to combine my collected knowledge in psychology and film production to make a documentary about the disorder that was affecting so many people. I interviewed a handful of local professionals that specialized in the field, and had a cameraman follow me around as I rambled on about what it was like to be disordered and how it had been evidenced in my life. When I asked the professionals about what the afflicted could do to help themselves lead a successful life, the most common answer was “structure”.
My therapist also gave me a book called ADD: A Different Perspective by Thom Hartman. He introduced what he called the “hunter in a farmer’s world” theory. The idea is that since humans were initially hunter-gatherers, some of us still identify with that lifestyle and find it challenging to fit into the farming ideologies that have set the standard through the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions.
It seems that most of the world I live in operates under this agricultural/industrial model, but from my perspective, it creates a lot of waste, in energy, attention, opportunities, and literal garbage. So while I could have just succumbed to my own disorder and done what was required to get with the program, I considered my society’s disorder as much more disastrous than my own, and I opted to keep doing my thing, and just amp it up more. To be honest, I’ve wasted a lot of energy, attention, and opportunities as well, but fortunately, society and I still exist, and both of us still have room for improvement.
Although I initially shirked the structure while creating a new life for myself as I traveled across the country, wrote a few books, songs, stories, and poems, and found other opportunities to excel as a performer and lifestyle stuntman, I have since seen where structure can be helpful. However, while my way of operating in the world has not always been conducive toward supporting the economic structure currently in place, I feel that it would be very wise to reconsider what our economy is actually supposed to do, and develop a structure that will truly help us reach our actual goals.
While our current economic structure is built on a 10,000 year old hierarchical model that is increasing economic inequality, squandering our resources, and damaging the environment, I believe that a more democratic economic structure can be developed considering the technologies now available to us.
The structure I would like to see built is an economic channeling system that can contribute to the continued evolution of human civilization by more greatly empowering people to participate in our development, both personally and collectively.
Since we are now developing a global economy, it is important to base any shared ideology on a multi-cultural paradigm of balance in order to establish an interdependent web of community collaboration and resource-based economics. As you will see, the theory of ABC Squared Economics uses a simple foundation of the four key elements that permeate nearly all human cultures and traditions. By realizing our unity and connection, we can create an economy that works for all.
I have to be honest, I have no idea how ones and zeros make computers work. It boggles my mind to consider how sequences of numbers, letters, and other characters create algoritms, graphics, sounds, and visuals that happen on a computer screen. So my technical jargon throughout the rest of this journey will be limited.
However, I was a poet before I was anything else so, in addition to a more articulate overview of what we’re facing and how we face it, I’ve infused this series of articles with some poetic perspectives on what ABC Squared Economics is about and how it can serve us as well.
Granted, the entire theory of ABC Squared Economics is largely a game of “what if?” But that has been a required question for any advance, innovation, improvement, or initiative that humankind has ever experienced. As a matter of fact, the ancient Greek word for money was nomisma, which is derived from the verb “to imagine”. If we’ve been able to imagine the civilization we have developed to this point using the money we’ve created, couldn’t we imagine a world in which it works even better?
As such, for any who say this vision is not possible, the next question is, why not?
In his book The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future, Kevin Kelly points out that “Question makers will be seen, properly, as the engines that generate the new fields, new industries, new brands, new possibilities, new continents that our restless species can explore. Questioning is simply more powerful than answering.”
So… what if we could do things differently?
