Why do we need money?

I heard today that many children think money just happens to appear out of a hole in the wall when required! Why should they not? It's logical really. When I was a little girl many moons ago I thought that as long as my mum had checks left in the checkbook then she could go to the bank and take out as much as she needed. Oh wish!
Why do we need money?
Greek Philosopher and scientist Aristotle explained in his Politics in c 330BC why money had been invented. The art of acquisition, he said, for which a currency was required, arose out of the simpler barter of goods, which he saw as quite natural and healthy. But when ‘The supply of men’s needs came to depend on more foreign sources, as men began to import for themselves what they lacked, and to export what they had in superabundance: …in this way the use of a money currency was inevitably instituted.’ And then the trouble began.
Because there is a distinction, as Aristotle pointed out, between essential and therefore laudable expenditure for the daily needs of food, shelter and clothing, and the acquisition of money for acquisition’s sake by profit associated with retail trade. The latter he censured:

"because the gain in which it results is not naturally made, but is made at the expense of other men. The trade of the petty usurer is hated with most reason: it makes a profit from currency itself, instead of making it from the process which currency was meant to serve. Currency came into existence merely as a means of exchange; usury tries to make it increase."

For good reason it seems, Aristotle did not trust money because he could see that it could feed an insatiable desire way beyond what was necessary for our needs and he saw this as unethical.He had a good point.

In addition to life’s basic survival necessities of warmth, clean air, medicine, clean water, food and housing, all human beings worldwide have a need and a human right to be free, to be respected as equals, able to choose their own destiny and to fulfill their full emotional, intellectual and spiritual potential. We are all entitled to the five basic human justices, of monetary and social justice, economic and environmental justice and of the right to peace.
But how to achieve this?
One of the reasons behind the appalling riots in English cities last summer was given as materialism. Now that should hardly be surprising. Given the huge disparity between the rich and the poor, is it any wonder that youngsters crave what they see as the material goodies flaunted by other people, as fuelled by marketing?
I believe that global justice will only come from our compassion and vulnerability and spirituality, qualities that need to be reflected in our financial housekeeping.

Satish Kumar writes: "This notion of spiritless existence can be described as materialism. All is matter; land, forests, food, water, labour, literature and art are commodities to be bought and sold in the marketplace - the world market, the stockmarket, the so-called free market… Business without spirit, trade without compassion, industry without ecology, finance without fairness, economics without equity can only bring the breakdown of society and destruction of the natural world. Only when spirit and business work together can humanity find coherent purpose." (Spiritual Imperative, in Resurgence).

Adapted from Healing this Wounded Earth 2011

Whose Land is it Anyway? Part 2

Yesterday I wrote of Land Grabbing, from an article by Lester Brown in the latest Resurgence. Here is another stupidity he exposes:

"In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Chinese companies have acquired 7 million hectares of land for Palm-Oil production whilst millions of people in DRC are dependent on international food aid."

That really is madness! Read the article at GRAIN for further information and to see what can and is being done to help the many powerless small holders across the world retain their land for farming.

Whose Land is it Anyway?

This is the title of an article by environmentalist Lester Brown in the latest issue of Resurgence, a wonderful publication, "at the heart of earth, art and spirit." If you are not familiar with this magazine, I strongly recommend it if you care at all for the future of the earth.

Lester warns of a new age of hunger precipitated by "land grabs," taking the land away from those who may have tilled it for centuries, often all in the interest of fat profits for companies who may well come from outside the area, and have no interest in the area except as a profit center. In his new book: World on the Edge, he tells us that "...in 2009 Saudi Arabia received its first shipment of rice produced on land acquired in Ethiopia while at the same time the World Food Program was providing food aid to 5 million Ethiopians."  

How mad is that?!
Lester gives other examples of this madness. Smallholder farmers across the world are so often helpless against governments and large corporations in this land-grabbing scandal.
You can read more about this and what can be done about it on the website of GRAIN, a "small international non-profit organisation that works to support small farmers and social movements in their struggles for community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems." 

We cannot ignore such injustices and stupidities - at the end of the day hunger is first and foremost an ethical and humanitarian issue - but we should also be aware that countries who currently have plenty to eat and live in comfort are very likely to be at the receiving end of refugees in numbers we simply cannot cope with in the future, unless we all pull together to promote global sustainability based on the need of all and not the greed of the privileged few.   

Think about it! 


 © Eleanor Stoneham 2011

Towards A Wiser Politics

Let’s be honest.
Our political systems really don’t seem to be doing very much for us these days, if we can judge these by our happiness, by the many intransigent social problems seemingly endemic in our populations, by the harm we are doing to ourselves and the planet. Our patterns of consumption, our profligate use of food and water and energy, are unsustainable. Our policies and our behavior combined seem to conspire in racing us towards a totally bleak future for humanity.
What has gone wrong?

I have just finished reading a review copy of a splendid and important book, due out in April, called A Wiser Politics, by Jean Hardy. “For all those who have been looking for a new politics, this is it!” proclaims Satish Kumar, Editor of Resurgence, and I have to agree.

Here is a most carefully reasoned but also intuitive and feeling book. Although it is written around the history of British political philosophy, don't let that deter you if you are in the United States or indeed anywhere else.  It is of a far wider relevance, because Western economic and political values have become pervasive throughout the globe, affecting the lives of the vast majority of people now living. 

The problem seems to be that our whole political philosophy is rooted historically to a time when man ruled supreme, women had no voice, from a time when man was seen as inherently warlike and competitive, needing an authoritarian society, always chasing wealth and glory and power, owning and exploiting the earth as if it were there for our own sole use. Politics was largely secular and rational, and assumed the superiority of the white rich male, usurping all those others; the feminine, the indigenous, the spiritual, who in all probability held a deeper and superior vision of life.

In this well reasoned book Hardy argues for a more connected politics, that embraces the Cosmos (universe and earth), the Polis (Greek for political and social world), and the Psyche (who we are). She traces the history of modern politics through the last 400 years, exploring the lives and times of those who wrote it

We are missing in our politics the feminine (politics still being largely male dominated), indigenous wisdom, consideration of the earth and all its creatures, a sense of the spiritual and the holistic, and an appreciation that concepts of human nature and behaviour are subject to new knowledge and now understood differently. Most interestingly, and important in this respect, Hardy draws attention to the psychological effects on children of their upbringing. There is plenty of evidence now that we are shaped by how we are nurtured, that the empathy and love bestowed upon us in our earliest years is crucial to the way we behave in later years.

A pattern emerges of the childhoods of those men who shaped today’s political world, showing that they suffered discontinuance, trauma or uncertain childhoods by any definition, lacking in the security of emotional ties. Indeed, it would be legitimate to argue, and Hardy does, that the root of all war lies in the lack of time and perception given to children, and in the positive neglect, disruption and cruelty experienced by others. It is certainly easy to see that most if not all world problems can be traced to the agency of humankind, and could be solved by changes in our behaviour.

She calls for a new way of governance, that will embrace the conscious and unconscious, the dark and the golden, a greater breadth of knowledge across all disciplines. The separation of science from religion, person from universe, feeling from intellect, are now being questioned. Depth psychology is showing us a way to a kinder, wider and deeper way of relating to the world. We need more interconnectedness, relationship with the spirit in all things. We need to demolish the myth that success is measured by material wealth. Modern science, politics and economy between them are powerful, but unsustainable and even immoral. We don’t love the earth enough so we need legislation to protect it from ourselves – and so on.

The book concludes with a list of 14 proposals for the framework of a wiser politics, a list of truths that Hardy says we must live out if we are to survive the twenty first century. I will post these over the next few weeks.

The Economy - Where is our compassion? Where is our Empathy?

On 28th January I wrote of our Irrational Behaviors, following the theme of the essay by Ervin Laszlo on “The World’s Health Problem: an Integral Diagnosis” in A New Renaissance – Transforming Science, Spirit and Society. Our Irrational Behavior Number One is that "Millions are suffering from overeating and obesity and a thousand million go hungry."Where, I asked, was our compassion for our fellow humankind? Where is our empathy?

Now I want to move on to Laszlo's Irrational Behavior number 2.

"The wellbeing and possibly the very survival of humanity are in question, but most of us remain occupied or preoccupied with making money and holding on to our privileges."

I love this Greenpeace banner:

When the last tree is cut, the last river poisoned, and the last fish dead, we will discover that we can't eat money...

And here is a thought from Satish Kumar from his classic article “Spiritual Imperative,” in Resurgence 2005.

"This notion of spiritless existence can be described as materialism. All is matter; land, forests, food, water, labour, literature and art are commodities to be bought and sold in the marketplace - the world market, the stockmarket, the so-called free market… Business without spirit, trade without compassion, industry without ecology, finance without fairness, economics without equity can only bring the breakdown of society and destruction of the natural world. Only when spirit and business work together can humanity find coherent purpose."

And here is one of my least favorite quotes:

‘What...[is wealth]…to you?’ the headline asked. ‘It’s being able to tell the world to get lost.’ This was from a series of bank advertisements run some while ago on the management of wealth, and it appeared in the popular glossy weekend media. To accompany this particular advert. there was a picture of a lone and pretty girl cantering away on a lovely white stallion into the beautiful and totally unblemished distance.

How can any single one of us afford to turn our back on the world in this way in any sense. How can any of us ride away to an unblemished horizon while so many basic human rights are not available to so many? That surely diminishes us as human beings. But someone, indeed a team of people, wrote that advertisement.

Where is our compassion? Where is our empathy?

But I see a glimmer of hope in what is coming out of Davos, the little mountain village in Switzerland where once a year corporate CEOs, heads of state, and leaders of nonprofit organizations from around the globe gather to reflect upon the state of the world at the “World Economic Forum." Reporting from Davos, Jim Wallis in an article at the Sojourners site Values from Davos, tells us that whilst in previous years he has struggled to bring the subject of moral values within the economy into the mainstream of discussions, now we are in economic crisis, the values conversations suddenly seem far more relevant. In 2009, he tells us,“there were 17 sessions with the word “values” in the title.” Now new buzz topics are “human flourishing” and “the common good.” And business executives have been telling him that they feel alone in their soul-searching for values, and business ethics professors at some of the country’s leading business schools tell him that their courses are over-subscribed, yet they still feel marginal to the curriculum.
But behaviors created this crisis, and unless values talk leads to changed behaviors, it won’t mean very much, he says. This is so much music to my ears - my own thesis really.
Wallis now finds himself the chair of a new Global Agenda Council on Values, its task to shape what the World Economic Forum is calling the “Moral Economy Dialogue.” This is intended to develop serious tools for personal, organizational, corporate, and national values assessments that focus on changing behaviors.

I quote Wallis: "This is all good news to Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive chairman of Davos who, as a young Swiss economist many years ago, wrote about the need for business to not only take into account the interests of shareholders, but also of the many other stakeholders — including employees, consumers, the poor, the environment, and future generations…That Davos would take these issues very seriously…is good news…But the headline in yesterday’s International Herald Tribune — “The Super-Rich Pull Ever Farther Ahead” — indicated we still have a long way to go. Many of those super-rich are at Davos, and I indicated yesterday that the only people whose lives seem to have got back to “normal” since the financial crisis began are those whose behaviors caused it in the first place. They are back to record profits, while a seminar I attended yesterday showed how dramatic and devastating unemployment still is around the globe — especially for young people.”

Yes there is hope. But we need two things urgently. We need to develop and feel our empathy for our fellow humanity, in everything we do, at all levels. And we need to address what is a basically flawed economy. I will come back to both these needs in future blogs. This is a big subject, but one we cannot ignore any longer.

The Plastic Beach

“Marine pollution is a disgusting manifestation of modern consumerism and it necessitates rethinking the ‘story of packaging.’ ”
Thus begins an article The Plastic Beach, in the January/February 2011 edition of Resurgence, No. 264, the beautifully produced magazine “at the heart of earth, art and spirit,” edited by Satish Kumar and his team.

Now in its 45th year, Resurgence exists to encourage “inspiration for a more beautiful world where soil, soul and society are in harmony with each other.”

But back to the article and what it tells us:

Over 70% of the earth is covered by oceans, but we know more about Venus than we do about the ocean floor.
It is estimated that there are 46,000 pieces of marine debris in every square mile of ocean (United Nations Environment programme). Plastic is the greatest culprit.
There are enormous plastic gyres in the North and South Pacific, the North and South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean.
In addition the oceans are toxic with chemicals from plastics that have already degraded into microscopic particles, and these chemicals have reached the food chain: mussels and lugworms have already been rendered sterile by the chemicals in some areas. All UK coastal waters contain this toxic “plastic dust.”
At lest one million sea creatures are killed every year by ingesting plastic waste – bags, bottle tops, toothbrushes, cigarette lighters. The pictures of dead birds on the beach, full of this plastic rubbish, are shocking.
I could go on…..

We must stop any more plastic getting into our oceans. Foodstuff and cosmetic packaging is a good place to start. I am not particularly proud to say that if it wasn’t for plastic rubbish I would not need a dustbin. I recycle everything else from my weekly rubbish, but my council will not take plastic for recycling, although all plastics can be recycled; it is a money thing of course. What I can do is try hard to reduce week on week the food I buy that is pre wrapped in plastic – not always easy but I’ll try very very hard.

The plastics industry itself is making some efforts, working with local councils to improve plastic recyling rates, (there is the Plastics 2020 Challenge) but that is not enough. Recycling, reusing, reducing plastic is just sticking plaster on “the gaping wound of planetary pollution.” We must create a new story, make it absolutely unacceptable to produce something that is toxic, or single use or that creates pollution. British Company Cyberpac is producing plastic bags that degrade harmlessly in water. The Good Natured Fruit Company pack their berries in cardboard trays with cellulose windows. The organic tomatoes I buy come in cardboard.

Let’s support when we shop all companies that have made an effort to reduce the toxic pollution that comes from unnecessary packaging.

Tourist or Pilgrim?

I wrote on 5th November of the conference I attended organised by Resurgence: To be a Pilgrim or a Tourist. But I did not say much there about the session given by Peter Owen Jones, and for my money he was the most brilliant speaker of the day.
I love Peter, as indeed do many others. I am sure he has broken a few hearts in his time. But he is not to everyone's taste! Maverick priest he has been called by some. The Times has called him "the bravest vicar in Britain...a man living with his soul." But his message is clear, sincere and persuasive. We have to act as individuals and communities to restore spirituality back into our lives, for the sake of our future, because there is an emotional and spiritual illiteracy amongst our leaders, in local and national government, and indeed globally.
The computer age, Peter explained, has destroyed our calling to explore, and a general loss of hospitality is destroying the opportunity for pilgrimage. And pilgrimage is not the same as travelling. Intimacy is of the pilgrim, not the traveller. The experience of the pilgrimage enriches us, we return changed. As travellers the effect is short lived - we simply return to the life we were escaping from, the life we have created - nothing changes there.
Why are we still travelling? What are we looking for? Paradise is actually around us if we only have eyes to see. And he reminded us that holidays were actually "Holy Days," for rest and quality family time, not for frenzied shopping, consuming, driving, travelling, generally stressing ourselves!

This all reminds me of Peter's wonderful book I reviewed some time ago on Amazon; Letters From an Extreme Pilgrim: Reflections on life, love and the soul. (For some reason this is not available from Amazon.com).

Do read the book. It is a gem.

To be a Pilgrim or a Tourist

Are you a tourist or a pilgrim? Do you travel within the landscape of desire and greed, never fulfilled, seldom satisfied, always seeking something more? Or do you travel in a landscape of love, recognising the sacredness of the place you visit, the sacredness of the earth on which you tread, travelling as an earth pilgrim?

Pilgrims celebrate what they find with gratitude; they do not complain. Tourists find plenty to complain about: the bed not soft enough, the room not big enough, the food not good enough, the view not pretty enough. We all can recognise ourselves I am sure.

Last weekend I went to an excellent conference in London, “To be a Pilgrim or a Tourist,” organised by Resurgence. These were the opening comments from the editor of that wonderful publication, Satish Kumar, who introduced an excellent team of speakers for the day. We heard Rupert Sheldrake, Ursula King, and Peter Owen Jones, with poetry readings from Deborah Harrison and Martin Powell, and some lovely singing from Annemarie Borg accompanied on the piano by Gabriel Keen. Sadly Caroline Lucas Leader of the UK Green Party could not be there. Between them they gave us all plenty of food for thought.

Why, asked Satish, do we go on holiday? Why do we run away from ourselves and our homes and countryside, which is so beautiful; the autumnal colours are particularly spectacular this year. Why do we fly to far -flung places just to laze away time in some “paradise” that does not meet expectations, and contributing to the greenhouse gas emissions that are changing our climate?

That is all very well – and he has a good point to make. But…..

The previous day we had delivered harvest festival food goodies from our church to another church community in our diocese; in a very poor and run down part of the city. The traffic ground along at snail pace, the streets were dingy, no sign of greenery anywhere to relieve the landscape, apart from a few trees grimy and poisoned from being bathed in constant exhaust fumes.

I am no expert on eschatology, but as we drove through this gloomy and deprived suburban sprawl towards our destination it crossed my mind that God would be justified in weeping at what we have done to his beautiful creation, and I would not blame Him wanting to destroy such as this and start again. As Peter Owen Jones observed later in the day, we are travelling to get away from what we have created.

Satish lives in a very beautiful part of England and has all the wonders of nature on his doorstep. Not everyone is so privileged.

OK, so we want to get away on holiday but do we have to travel solely as tourists? Could we reintroduce the spirit of pilgrimage into our travel?

Yes we can and we should. Rupert Sheldrake, following on after Satish, gave us some ideas, and I’ll write about his thoughts in my next post …

The event was filmed with a view to showing it on the Resurgence website. As of time of writing this has not appeared, but the link takes you to the details of the conference and its speakers.

The photo is of the Priory Ruins at Walsingham, taken on my pilgrimage there earlier this year.

Fascinating Facts

I am enjoying my latest edition of Resurgence, the attractive magazine, edited by Satish Kumar, which is "at the heart of earth, art and spirit." On its website it is described as "a magazine for people who care about the environment, love reading, enjoy new ideas and are looking for inspiration on sustainable living." It is beautifully produced and a pleasure to read, with its wonderful illustrations, its poetry and its high calibre articles.

I have always worried about having to take pharmaceutical drugs - have never been sure about the long term side effects, which so often are little known.

But perhaps I need never have worried, or not so much anyway? According to an article in the Resurgence July/August issue by Joanna Eede a recent analysis of the original sources for the 1031 drugs approved world wide from 1981 to 2002 concluded that none were totally synthetic. The "majority of medicines are still based on structures found in Nature, and Nature still provides the best chemical leads ...for compounds that have a medicinal value for humans. "

And where does such knowledge come from in the first place? From the indigenous tribes, who have always relied on the plants around them for the prevention and treatment of illness, and have been in tune with the ecosystems around them for thousands of years.

If we ignore such ancient wisdom, drive such tribes and their ecosystems to extinction, we risk losing a vast fund of knowledge and perhaps losing cures that are yet to be discovered.

The photo is a view of the herb garden at Hever Castle in Kent, summer 2010.