08041 Alternative Economic Systems
This focus on money and power may do wonders in the marketplace, but it creates a tremendous crisis in our society. People who have spent all day learning how to sell themselves and to manipulate others are in no position to form lasting friendships or intimate relationships... Many Americans hunger for a different kind of society — one based on principles of caring, ethical and spiritual sensitivity, and communal solidarity. Their need for meaning is just as intense as their need for economic security. — Michael Lerner
Given the predatory nature of the modern economics of unsustainability, there is considerable interest in how to devise alternative economic systems that could help fulfill the permaculture goals of caring for people, caring for the planet, and having a care for the future.
The world doesn’t lack for suggestions for alternative economics.
There appear to be some devils in those details however.
The first seems to be that many of these suggestions appear to be designed from the top down rather than the bottom up. If there is anything evident from history, it is that economic systems designed from the top down and imposed by coercion are always disasters. Consider the problems inherent with the corporation form of business organization. A corporation is an organized gang of human beings allowed to take actions in human communities and marketplaces without any of the human owners being personally responsible for the actions of the collective! This is a non-natural pattern imposed by a coercive State onto spontaneously organizing marketplaces. How can that not be a prescription for perpetual trouble?
The second problem seems to me that many suggestions for alternative economic systems are themselves absolutist monocultures. If there is anything evident from ecology, it is that monocultures are always ecological disasters.
The Seeds of the Diverse Economic Systems of a Permaculture Future
I resist the temptation to describe in detail what a “permaculture economic system” looks like now or the future. When you look at the seed of an oak tree, it is not immediately apparent that within the seed lies a tall mature canopy tree. Today we see the seeds of a future of permaculture economics. What the “mature canopy trees” of a permaculture economics look like we cannot know. Sufficient for this time is the knowledge that we have seeds available. Our job is to plant and cultivate them.
I will speculate about the seeds of our future just and sustainable economic systems. The diverse economic systems of the future will grow from some or all of the following characteristics.
Personal commitments to the permaculture ethics of caring for people, caring for the planet, and caring for the future. This is where permaculture design and sustainable living begin and thus where our future just and sustainable economics originate. Economics is not everything. Ethics and society are integral to the design of a permacultured economy.
We start small. Changes in the macro-economy, as we discussed in some detail in 08031, start with our household economies. If we want a macro economy that cares for people, cares for the planet, and has a care for the future, we organize our own household micro economies in accordance with those ethics. We learn to practice what we preach right at our own doorstep first. Each family, each household, becomes a seed for the future.
A diversity of systemic beneficial connections characterize all permaculture designs and this must be true of our future economics.
Stacked functions celebrates economy of investment, as we achieve more than one result from the same investment.
Small and slow and natural biological solutions preferred to fast and large and artificial.
Slow money and financial permaculture concepts. These are the Permaculture 2.0 thoughts on the original economic ideas given by Mollison and Holmgren in the Permaculture Design Manual and other early permaculture works.
Distributive justice. If our economic systems are to be sustainable over the long term, there must be justice in the distribution of the goods of the Earth. Surplus must be fairly shared and circulated.
Respect for nature. Nature has value in and of itself, irrespective of the benefits it gives to human beings. Human beings cannot prosper while nature dies.
Avoid monocultures. Whatever our future economics look like, it will not be a monoculture.
Plan for and benefit from succession. We can’t get to permaculture economic systems overnight. We get there one step at a time. We start with the “pioneer plants” and move on to through the succession of forms, structures, elements, and systems until the mature permaculture ecosystems emerge and grow organically from their previous forms.
No rent-seeking. No person or business will be allowed to distort the economic system for personal or corporate profit.
Cooperative forms of business enterprise. The most immediate “pioneer plant” with which we can colonize the damaged economic ecology of modern life is the cooperative form of business enterprise.
Freedom from coercion. In the absence of doing harm to others, future economic systems will not be characterized by coercion.
Identify and prevent criminal harm. An important transition stage in the development of our future permaculture economics is to use structures and systems to identify, restrain, and limit the harm and damage to both people and the environment that results from individual and corporate action. Crime pays in our present system because that’s the way the system design works. We need a better design to take the profit out of crime.
New systems of accounting. We’re already seeing discussion of new systems of accounting that take non-monetary measures into consideration. This is an important area of “seed work” that needs more resources, time, and smart thinking.
Total Economic Return = Return to the Worker + Return to the Investor + Return to the Community + Return to the Planet/Ecosystem.
Resourcefulness (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle): We need efficiency, responsibility, and stewardship in our use of the earth’s resources. We move beyond the present mentality of extraction and exploitation and seek a partnership with nature. This is the development of constancy, our systems ability to maintain themselves going forward into the future.
Resilience (Regenerate, Renew, Reproduce, Reorganize): Resourcefulness however by itself is not enough. Thanks to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, every time we do something useful we lose some of the energy in the transaction. Over time, we lose it all. The mainstream economy finesses this with exploitation and extraction. We need something better. Thus we seek to strategies of regeneration to renew, reproduce, and reorganize so we keep things going over time. This ability to bounce back from damage is a measure of our resilience.
Persistence (Resist, Responsive, Redundant). In both nature and human societies, the tendency over time is toward more complexity. In the process, we lose important values and strategies. We get more efficient by eliminating redundancies. We become less responsive and less interdependent. We resist all that makes us less resilient/persistent/constant and more brittle. We remain responsive to challenges and redundant in our systems and resources. This permits us to be persistent in the face of the challenges of the future..
Invest in the future. We must invest in non-monetary social and ethical values and in protecting the common good of the present and the future.
Phasing out the corporation. One of the steps towards a more sustainable economy is to phase out the limited liability corporation form of business organization in favor of more natural and free forms of business organization and association.
The first step towards this is to take away the perpetual nature of corporations. If corporations want to be humans, they have to embrace one of the most essential aspects of humanity, which is the fact that we die. This can be done by eliminating the perpetual nature of newly organizing corporations. Most state laws allow legislatures to change incorporation laws in ways that affect the charters of corporations organized under specific chapters of state codes. These can be amendment to provide for the “death” of corporations after a specific period of time. A corporation could have a will and the regular inheritance process could be applied to the orderly transfer of the assets and activities of a “deceased corporation” to its heirs. Perpetuity should only be granted to organizations that exist for public and non-profit purposes.
A second necessary reform is to remove the “corporate shield of liability,” so that the owners of the corporations become personally responsible for the actions and liabilities of the corporation. This will have beneficial results —
Corporations will get much smaller. How much liability will any individual stockholder be willing to take on?
Stock ownership will be less about speculating and more about ownership, with stockholders becoming much more interested and concerned with the activities of the corporation.
Some corporations may cease doing business because no one will assume personal responsibility for its actions. Since the activities of those corporations are among the most damaging to the planet's ecologies, everyone — people, planet, and the future — will benefit from their orderly demise and the transfer of their assets to more productive enterprises where people are willing to take responsibility for their economic actions.
This will constitute a structural limitation on the “FIRE” (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate) economic activities, which many consider to be a vampire on the real economy. Money will migrate from the parasitic stock market and other speculative financial instruments into real wealth economic activities.