Everything is changeable. The economy is changeable too. We can create a different one: one that overcomes the insane, destructive sides of our current one. One that allows us to regenerate nature and rebuild our communities. First, we must regain our economic citizenship, because we have positioned ourselves as dependent consumers.

In the first step of this process, we need to understand three things:

1. We need to understand the dynamics, principles, and paradigms that currently shape the economy and society.
   Fundamental transformations are only possible if we change the governing principles and dynamics. If we can understand them, we will know what to change.

2. We must understand how those dynamics and beliefs are tightly intertwined with our daily lives.
   Seeing how those dynamics shape our daily lives allows us to lessen the grip of those paradigms. We will be able to create inner freedom, resilience, and independence, and we must take bold steps.

3. We need to understand how we maintain and advance the economy in our daily actions.
   Knowing how we maintain the current system will give us a clue about where to start.

Let's use an example to make it easier to grasp.

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The economy is built on the circulation of money. Money is at its very foundation, and it feels so commonplace that we perceive it as natural. But it is a human invention. There have been times when humanity didn’t use money, and there are still indigenous people without it. Money is foundational to our society and in its creation it was shaped it in a specific way. Of all its properties, I want to highlight one: money is the gateway to society. You need money to be an active participant in society and to maintain your livelihood. This necessity compels you to earn money and engage in the circulation of money.

So money is one of the governing principles of our economy.

Money shapes our daily lives. Two aspects of our lives may shine a light on this:

• We need to work to earn money, and this dictates the rhythms and cultures of our families. Money is the yardstick for almost everything, so it shapes our perception of self-esteem and self-worth. This drives the extraction of every natural resource we can think of. Thus, money is also at the base of the ecological destruction we create.

• Money isn’t confined locally; instead, it flows globally. Over the last few decades, we have changed the laws so that almost everyone has the right to invest wherever they want to. Suddenly, entire neighborhoods are in the hands of non-citizens, turning property into an object of speculation. We flood local markets with foreign products, foods, and raw materials, undermining local economies based on self-sufficiency, and creating poverty and migration.1

These are just two of the ways that the governing principles of money shape our daily lives.

And we all take part in this economy, we need to take part, even the beggar on the street does this to survive. And by this, through all these tiny daily actions and decisions, we maintain the money system and the economy. When we hand out pocket money to our children, we introduce them to the system. When we buy things that aren’t really necessary, we maintain the system, just as we do when we are fighting with our spouse about how to spend money.

In 1932, the Austrian community of Wörgl started an experiment with a complementary currency, later called the "Miracle of Wörgl" (https://unterguggenberger.org/the-free-economy-experiment-of-woergl-1932-1933). This regional currency was the first sovereign, democratically legitimized citizens' money. It had a remarkably positive effect on the local economy during the time of the Great Depression. And it ended abruptly by prohibition of the state government, before more than 200 other communities had chance to apply it. The "Wörgl Experiment" showed that another money regime is possible. We need to envision it. And then create it. We’ll talk about this during the coming months.

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Being or becoming an economically successful member of our societies depends mostly on four aspects:

1. Having access to property and wealth.

2. Understanding how wealth is created, especially through certain monetary principles.

3. Understanding the use and distribution of power.

4. The ability to apply this knowledge.

This creates a certain kind of social fabric in societies, a fabric that is highly risky for everyone.

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1. It favors competition instead of cooperation.
   The economy is based on competition and the belief that only competition leads to the best ideas and solutions. This fosters inequality and marginalization instead of mutual support and collaboration, which goes against our nature as social and interdependent creatures.

2. It favors exploitation instead of regenerating nature.
   First of all, property is theft. It turns something (soil, nature, plants, fresh air, water) necessary for the well-being of all beings into the possession of a few. And this possession is hardly tied to rules and regulations. In recent decades, the value of a property has changed; it's now only defined by its potential or actual exploitation, where nature doesn't have a say. Pollution, environmental deterioration, and biodiversity loss are directly linked to this.

3. It favors uniformity instead of diversity.
   The ideas we carry of prosperity and wealth are largely similar worldwide, linked to a certain kind of lifestyle and monetary richness. They aren't linked to wisdom, self-development, and individuality. This results in a loss of creativity, the richness of cultures, techniques, and traditions, and the diversity of solutions and possibilities.

Our ideal of an economically successful person is the opposite of one who can transform, who is rooted in himself, and who has the agency and inner power to question and change the current situation. This is the opposite of what we urgently need as a society.

Several years ago, the town I lived in had a long tradition of immigrant workers. They contributed greatly to the economic success of local businesses, and were equally confronted with the economic consequences of the decline of those local businesses due to industrialization.

It was a long tradition, but it wasn't visible.

In fact, the immigrants were not visible at all, except at the public school where their children attended. But still, the parents remained invisible. It took three generations for this tradition to turn into small, self-owned businesses, and the grandchildren of the first arrivals took a public place in the community, still far away from true participation.Marginalization is not only a democratic or political issue; it is also part of our economy, which creates and builds upon it. Marginalization creates a cheap workforce without the social consequences of equal participation in society. But that's only part of the story. To understand the working dynamic, we have to take a broader view of the economy's relationship with marginalization.

There's a tight connection between the economy, law, and media. In fact, we must see media and law as part of the economy, as large companies occupy and shape the media landscape, while law firms operate on a global scale, supporting both governments and corporations. If we look more closely at this connection, we can see different aspects of marginalization:

1. The policies, politics, and economy that have been set in place favor big companies, destroying and marginalizing local, self-owned businesses and crafts with a long tradition, and local markets.

2. They define public spaces, both real and virtual. Through the vehicle of public–private partnership, companies gain access to vital public domains like neighborhoods, housing, public spaces, and services like water and waste disposal. Privately owned companies host and control virtual public spaces, especially social media. They shape not only the content but also the way our public discussions are conducted.

3. They directly and indirectly define medicine, science, schools, and universities. Thus, they shape not only public opinion and public information but also the whole process of learning and growing up, considering the way the economy directly influences our private lives and our family culture.

But to be clear: it's not "the economy" that does all this. It is us, either having an active role in the economy or simply allowing others to shape and define our social lives. That's why, through all these processes, we allow the economy to rob us of our agency and power: we marginalize ourselves through the economy that we create and maintain.

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It is never enough.

We are living among an incredible abundance of possibilities, with options available to us that previous generations couldn't even imagine. We have the ability to fly around the world, the leisure time to do so, the capacity to buy and utilize technology and products, and the opportunity to consume media and information. But it's never enough.

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The economy has created an abundance of things, but above all, it has created scarcity. All those things we produce do not solve our needs or help us grow; they create the constant feeling of lack that is necessary to keep the cycle going.

The effects are tremendous:

1. We are creating sick societies. We are not dying from a lack of food but from too much of it. We are getting depressed by the void in our lives. We are addicted to drugs and sex media.

2. We are creating ecological destruction with all its consequences, ranging from climatic changes we can't handle, to war and political instabilities, to the fact that we ruin our own ability to adapt and survive by damaging our livelihoods.

3. We are destroying our communities, the richness of our cultures and traditions, and the social fabric that keeps us alive and gives us meaning and the fullness of life.

But the economy's most far-reaching influence is on our existence as engaged, co-creative, active citizens. The economy turns us from citizens into consumers. It creates a distorted version of power: not the power to create something, understand the world, or evolve, but the power to possess something, whether it be money, an apartment, or simply a different kind of shampoo.

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One cannot deny the humanity of another without diminishing one's own: in the face of one's victim, one sees oneself.

James Baldwin 1

Our economy is built on the violence of humans against humans.

We all know how deeply ingrained it is. We all know the various faces and forms this violence can take: ongoing slavery, racism, caste societies, social injustice, and the denial of human rights for women, minorities, and marginalized people. The underlying idea is that not every human is seen as truly human. Some are deemed to have no humanity, by groups who see themselves as the 'true' humans. This idea has a long tradition that we can trace back to the Greeks and Romans, who perceived their slaves merely as property.

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There's a lot written about human violence against humans and its close connection to the economy. I want to emphasize one important reason why we need to recognize this connection and not ignore it any longer: as long as not every human is fully human, we ourselves are not fully human. This is true whether we are directly involved in slavery or violence, or believe we are just mere spectators. As long as we are part of a system that favors violence, oppression, and exploitation of our fellow humans, we destroy our own humanity. And, as we know, we can't live outside this system.

The long-standing tradition of imperialism and racism, along with a history of violence in our economy, is reflected throughout all aspects of our society. We can find it in the way we structure our organizations and businesses, and in how we treat ourselves as customers, clients, and employees. We see it in our schools and governments, as well as in our families, manifested through endemic domestic violence or the unequal distribution of power and potential between men and women. It may be subtle, but we still carry this pattern forward.

To honor all this is not to blame ourselves or create guilt. It's the only way to empower ourselves: societal healing and true transformation are possible if we recognize our violent heritage, acknowledge our ongoing involvement in violence against ourselves, and embrace it as a gateway.

This post is part of the project’25: a year dedicated to profound societal transformation. Help building the movement for a humanity living in accordance with nature.

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No elite, whether political or religious, is conceivable without an economic surplus to finance it. The invention of agriculture was central to building communities that specialized in various disciplines and responsibilities. Only by creating an agricultural surplus was it possible for people to step back from the daily struggle for survival and establish domains such as governance, spirituality, and art. Thus, from the very beginning of their existence, governance and economy have intertwined in a relationship of mutual dependency. Over the course of millennia, this relationship has shaped both aspects and has been constantly evolving.

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The key steps that led to the development of our current democracy are inconceivable without the economy. In various countries, the formation of a wealthy bourgeoisie allowed this class to demand democratic and participatory rights from the monarchy. Merchants and craftsmen were able to do so simply because they had the economic strength, and the government was dependent on them. Democracy was possible only through the economy.

But this has changed in recent decades. With the advent in the last century of a global development we know as neoliberalism, the economy entered almost all domains of social life, along with its values, principles, and hidden agendas. Instead of supporting democracy, it is now a significant—if not central—threat to it.

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Let us talk about a few aspects of this threat:

1. Imperialism and empire-building are impossible without the global economy. It rendered central services like privatized warfare, land robbing, plunder, and the creation of slavery. Those structures are not gone. We have to deal with their consequences. What's more, we still use them, although they may be dressed in different clothes.

2. Political decisions enabled the rise of multinational corporations. These corporations now hold power that is unmatched by any equivalent in government. Instead, we observe that these corporations create their own laws, occupy public spaces, and shape the direction of entire societies and nations.

3. Gross National Product (GNP) measures societal and political success. The GNP orientation puts communities and societies under constant pressure and forces them into ruinous competition.

4. The economy constantly creates inequality, tension, and destruction. It does this by telling us the story of endless economic growth, which is needed and will help us overcome those inequalities. But infinite growth on a finite planet is not possible. Instead, infinite growth results in the global ecological destruction we are facing.

5. Along with the paradigm of endless growth, there are other paradigms that the economy holds onto and reinforces in our societies: patriarchy, discrimination of minorities, suppression, exploitation, and the ostracism of large segments of our community, as well as the idea that humans and nature are separate.

All of this reinforces our situation; it reinforces our crises. Our governance is a servant in this power play, and we ourselves are servants as we participate in the market and play games according to the rules of others. Those rules are ones we can't define because the very construction of our societies doesn't allow us to play by our own rules.

But if we want to transform our crises, we must change this power play. We must establish our own rules and empower ourselves to do so.

The economy claims to be fair and built upon the rational decisions of all participants'. Nothing could be further from the truth.

There is a simple built-in tendency in our economy to obfuscate its challenging aspects and unpleasant realities. Examples include:

• In Sicily and Spain, refugees are forced into working on vegetable plantations as cheap labour, part of the hidden economy of slavery that’s found all over the world.

• In Africa, Asia, and America, wherever weak governance exists, people are forced from their land by international actors in a form of robbery known as land grabbing, which undermines local communities, agriculture, and economies.

When you go to the grocery store and buy your vegetables, or shop online for your new computer device, you do not have any information about your consumption's ecological, social, or political implications. Nor do you understand how all of this influences your life. No one tells you about these aspects of a transaction as long as you do not consciously seek them out. They are glossed over by nice advertising stories or labels and packaging that often claim much more than they deliver.

In reality, the economy and violence are deeply interconnected. Violence is not a marginal phenomenon, as we might think. It is a central part of how we run our economy, and it has been this way from the very beginning.

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One of the birthplaces of our form of capitalism is the island of Madeira. The Portuguese rediscovered this island in 1419 and soon established the first form of industrialized agriculture—sugarcane cultivation—and built a global market on it. Sugarcane was one of the first international commodities sought out, especially but not exclusively, in Europe. Inventions central to capitalism were utilized for this, such as international financing and the connection of various local demands and markets into an international trading cycle. Most importantly, this market was built upon the two most significant forms of violence: violence against humans (slavery) and violence against nature (relentless exploitation). Just 50 years later, the wood that gave the island its name was no longer available, because it had been overused.1

The Portuguese took what they learned and replicated it on a much larger scale in Brazil. Madeira was the starting point for an enormous slave trade from Africa to the Americas that followed in the centuries to come.

All those practices still exist: imperial power, ecological destruction, and slavery. Violence is a built-in feature of our economy, something from which we cannot distance ourselves. As active participants in the global economy, we are connected to all of its aspects. If we want to transform the economy into a regenerative servant of our communities, we need to look more closely at how this relationship works.

We will examine three important topics in the coming weeks: the entanglement of governance and economy, as well as the two main forms of violence: against humans and against nature.

At the beginning of commercialization, there was a simple shift: the obligation to pay taxes in money. Where once you could pay your taxes with goods, you now have to participate in the money circle. This forces people into trade, into what we call the economy.1

This simple shift started a development prioritizing the economy above all other aspects of communities and societies. Without the economy, there’s no way to earn money (which we need to pay taxes); without money, there’s no social participation. If the economy doesn’t work, the whole system falls apart. The economy is the master, not the servant. This is by design, not by default. It is based on a simple social construction that can be changed.

The ancient economies where taxes and money were invented are different from our current economies. Other paradigms and techniques emerged, leading to the crucial situation we are in:

a) access to cheap energy, which is the basis of industrialization and technology

b) consume as part of the global culture and a main driver of the economy with the underlying story of scarcity and incompleteness

c) the paradigm of unlimited economic growth.

There’s a fourth, a decisive one: Our economy and economic growth are based on exclusion. Slaves, women, the suppressed, and the marginalized are the source of cheap labor and, therefore, a central ingredient of our current economy. They are an ingredient but not a participant. Their social and political rights are minimalized as far as possible and made invisible.

Beyond this, nature has no say. In all its beauty and with its enormous ecological systems, animals, plants, rivers, and seas, it is, above all, one thing: a commodity. We use nature as a resource and do not see it as what it is: the greatest part of our livelihood, the basis for our pure existence.

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The economy is the master. It defines and shapes our whole society, from how we understand and organize our private lives and families to the priorities of our political organizations. Everything we do follows the necessities and principles of the economy. It defines what has value and what is just a simple supply: paid work vs. all the recreational work still mostly done by women; economic success vs. inner growth and integrity, and so on.

The economy should be a servant, not a master. Its task is to support communities and individuals holistically, including nature in all its dimensions: providing food and shelter, creating meaning and sense, and allowing us to live in harmony with nature, both our own and the natural world overall.

But the economy is the master, and the show must go on whatever happens. That’s where we must start if we want to transform our societies profoundly.

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To see and to use the opportunity that lies in our current mess, we have to embrace a few things.

1. Embrace the mess.

There’s no way out of our situation as humans unless we fully acknowledge it, with all its contradictions, tensions, paradoxes, violence, and destruction, and with all that it tells us about ourselves as humans.

2. Embrace the unknown.

All the things we have done and learned before have brought us to our current situation, and they won’t help us out of it. There is something that will help us, some solution, but we don’t know it yet. To realize the path we want to take, we have to open up to the unknown.

3. Embrace not knowing.

We always cling to what went well to solve a challenging situation. We think we know the solution, but that’s not true. We need not fear that we do not know. Instead, we should embrace our not-knowing because it opens the door to unknown resources.

4. Embrace our true humanity.

We are spiritual creatures in a physical body. We have consciousness; we are a finite intelligence embedded in an infinite intelligence. We need to embrace this as our true humanity: we are embedded in an infinite intelligencene we never could understand fully, but we are an essential part of, able to work with and use. If we open up, this infinite intelligence will support us on our journey to new forms of community. But that requires us to accept and use our full capacity as humans and integrate our spiritual and physical being.

Every one of us is a natural-born leader; we only have to discover and nourish this leadership:

- We must be humble and accept that inner transformation is the key to every outer transformation.

- To open up to infinite intelligence means to have faith and trust, and to build persistence.

- There’s no change without action. So we must be courageous enough to act wisely and in a timely way, to learn and reflect, and to embrace the mess, the unknown, the not-knowing, and our true humanity

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#2

So we are in a mess.

To fully understand this mess, we must ask ourselves what lies ahead.

There are two parts to this question. First, we can ask what we already know about what lies ahead. Second, we can ask ourselves what opportunities our current situation holds.

So, what lies ahead?

The dynamic we call climate change is already changing the environmental basis of our livelihoods and societies. This dynamic will increase and evolve so much that it outdates the models we use to predict it. knowledge, we think we gained to understand and control the situation, will be of small value.

Central ecological systems will be even further destroyed. There is no recognizable change in the patterns and structures that feed this destruction. Instead, the rise of technologies like AI increases the demand for, and the exploitation of, natural resources and energy. All of this puts growing pressure on all societies.

The inner tension in our societies and communities continues to rise, too. We see polarization, growing violence and state repression, the rise of autocratic governments in democracies, increasing social inequality and refugee movements, and the inability of the political sphere to solve this.

The inner contradictions of our societies are becoming more and more apparent: all our governments, democratic and non-democratic, are built on the exclusion and marginalization of a large part of the population, such as women, those who are facing poverty, and refugees. Western countries, in particular, are trying to solve these contradictions by exporting them to unstable regions, like we do with garbage. But that leads to more instability: the external change and internal tensions are tightly connected in the sense that they feed each other.

To summarize: We are stuck in a vicious cycle, and all the crises, upheavals, and transitions we are facing right now are part of it.

And what is the opportunity, that lies ahead?

When a storm blows through a forest, the resulting scene may look like one of devastation. In fact, it is a fruitful situation in which something new arises. What had been lying dormant, like seeds and little plants, now have light and space to grow and develop.

It’s no different with social structures. Every breakdown is an opportunity for something new to arise, simply because there’s a moment in time when all the old patterns and dynamics do not work more. So, the ongoing upheaval is a chance for us to reconstruct our communities and societies, rebuild them on healthy paradigms in accordance with nature and on a human scale, and create communities that invite everyone in and allow them to fulfill their potential and live a meaningful life. The seeds are already there. What we need to do is to be prepared for the right moment. We need to have a clear vision of what kind of society we want to build and how we can use upheavals and transitions to create it.

We are in a mess. We have to deal with our mess. But how we deal is not defined. We can choose how to react, and how to act upon it. Do we see our mess as a crisis we aren’t able to solve? Or can we see the opportunity to build something new?