How do we create a regenerative economy and all that entails when that work is arbitrarily outlawed, suppressed or actively disincentivized by the value systems that dominate our current culture?
HINT: We have to step outside of the current imposed power structure – no permission required.
My presupposition for this episode is this: Mainstream, state sponsored and enforced economic theory and practice has herded humanity as a whole onto a degenerative trajectory with respect to environmental integrity, social cohesion and individual well-being.
We are living in a debt-driven world – stealing from future generations so we can have more now.
If we want to live regeneratively, there has to be another way of meeting our needs today without destroying the ecosystems that provide them. In fact, we need to make them stronger and more productive!
That “other way” is Counter-Economics.
Counter-Economics is the theory and practice of all human action neither accepted by the State nor involving any initiatory violence or threat of violence.
Counter-Economics exists and can be practiced outside the boundaries of State power (the State being that institution that has a legal monopoly on the use of force within a certain arbitrary geographic border). State power exists at the intersection of three things:
- Scope – laws on the books.
- Reach – boots on the ground.
- Will – what lives in the heart of the agent of the State.
To engage in the counter economy is to engage only in moral actions (voluntary, without initiation or or threat of violence). They may or may not be legal as viewed from the perspective of the State Agent.
In order to get to a regenerative economy, we have to add one more layer – an ethical framework provided by the Prime Directive and three ethics of permaculture.
Prime Directive: The only ethical decision is to take responsibility for yourself and your dependents. Make it now.
Permaculture Ethics
- Care Of The Earth: Provision for all life systems to continue and multiply.
- Care Of People: Provision for people to access those resources necessary for their own existence.
- Setting Limits To Population And Consumption: By governing our own needs, we can set resources aside to reinvest towards the first two ethics.
Once we have combined Counter-Economics with the ecologically sound guideposts from permaculture, we have created the foundation for a truly regenerative economy. One in which the 7th Generation Principle can come to fruition in act and spirit:
The 7th Generation Principle: A 7th generation systems creates socially and economically fulfilling lives for its inhabitants, whose daily activity patterns regenerate natural ecosystems and increase living capital year over year, such that the economic and social value of natural ecosystems is always increasing, and the value-ing of those systems is transmitted intact across generations.
Show Resources
- The Regenerative Agora: Counter-Economics For Stewards Of The Future
- The Prime Directive, Ethics and Principles Of Permaculture
- The 7th Generation Principle: Designing Ecosystems For Continuity Across Generations
- Counter-Economics: From The Back Alleys To The Stars – by Samuel Edward Konkin III
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