economics rethought
Extracts from The end of all wars, a story set on a fictional planet which had been steeped in wars and destruction until a group of thinkers managed to inspire the people of their planet to do some thinking, some dreaming and eventually a lot of reshaping. The following two snippets are from the reshaping period in the story.
We were again surprised when we came across more and more businesspeople who reflected on their actions and eventually realised how much damage their practices had inflicted upon the lives of billions of people and upon the environment.
Some retired in shame. Others took time off to find an island and research how nature works and how their observations could be translated into business practices. Some gave their fortunes to the newly set up planet restoration fund. Others joined the groups of people who tested new economic ideas in simulations. Some spoke with those who held on to damaging practices. Others came up with plans of how to clean up the tons of rubbish they had produced to fill their shops. Some made it their mission to stop the use of all plastics. Others attended workshops to train their imagination. Some asked for treatment for their gambling addiction. Others sought treatment for their detachment. Some wrote the most amazing stories of empowerment. Others — well, for quite a while there were still those who thought they were cleverer than everyone else and who continued to be very clever and screwed the planet — until we ended all wars and there was no longer a place for them in our world.
There was one surprise we had hoped for, and we experienced it repeatedly in the many meetings with the elders of the more than three thousand groups of wild people on our planet — which we soon renamed in our minds and hearts: the elder people. We had mentioned them in two of our essays as potential sources of wisdom and as potential guides on our journey to reconnect to nature and to ourselves.
Our hopes were not disappointed and over the following decades the elder people enabled us to develop a much deeper understanding of nature and humans’ ability to connect to it. Their insights into the natural world influenced much of our reshaping efforts.
Eventually, the desire to live and the curiosity to see whether or not we could learn to enjoy each other’s company got the better of the people of our planet, and we came together after the brave citizens of the most ruthless nations united and arrested their leaders and generals. (…)
Rethinking our economic activities was a huge and painful task.
Learning from nature and allowing ourselves to flexibly adjust our ideas over and over again, played an important part in evolving into a species which is no longer obsessed with filling the planet with waste only to have greater output, nor a species which is preoccupied with outsmarting all others to have competitive advantages and economic dominance.
As a result, the products on our planet have an unrivalled quality and are fully integrated in a natural cycle. We only produce what is ordered, and we have unearthed an extent of human potential we didn’t expect in our wildest dreams. The progress, sustainable progress, we have made in the previous decades would have taken former generations several centuries.
I remember us wondering whether nature, and with that the planet, is one big organism where everything is connected. I think it might be so, and sometimes I see our ball of a planet like a living creature, pulsating with life while gliding through the universe in a dance with its closest stars and satellite planets.
Our economic system is built on that idea: an organism which breathes, creates, adjusts, moves, is alive — and sometimes it dances, always seeking balance, always nurturing, always empowering.
Contrary to nature, we humans have a choice. We don’t have to react blindly. We don’t have to react without understanding what it is we are reacting to or what the consequences of our reaction will be.
We humans have the creative and mental power to shape our world and to do so in the most beneficial way for all living creatures and for everything else that makes up our wonderful planet.
© Charlie Alice Raya, The end of all wars
For more see the website: The end of all wars where you can also buy the book.