The Mystical Mountain

We live in a time of rapid change and uncertainty. The 50 year failure of the environmental movement has left us with a tangle of interconnected problems. Ecosystem destruction;  freakishly high levels of pollution of the land the water and the atmosphere; and resource depletion combine to create a looming crisis of epic proportions. We are faced with increasing political and economic instability and it’s clear that there will be no large scale co-ordinated efforts to address any of it.

This blog is about what we can do, as ordinary people in families and small groups, to create lives worth living; to build a future worth having; and to be a force for renewal and regeneration in our much depleted world. I hope to provide some possibilities based on our universal human strengths and the strategies that have allowed us to thrive in the past. 

The change I’m advocating here is adjusting how we think about wealth. This is another area fraught with misconceptions and misunderstanding . Some time spent re-examining our ideas about money, economics, and the system that determines wealth and value is needed in order to get to a place of sound observations.

The first and most common misunderstandings are around money. Money is not wealth. It is a token system that measures value: the value of your labour and time; the value of the available goods and services. It’s not completely accurate to say that money has no intrinsic value. Its “value” is making transactions and exchanges of time and labour for goods and services more convenient. 

Money is not a resource. It can be exchanged for resources and that is the source of its perceived power. However if the resource you want or need doesn’t exist no amount of money can make it magically appear. At the very most high demand and high prices can provide the incentive to someone to try to produce or procure the resource in question.

Second money is a measure of value but not everything of value can be measured and not everything that can be measured by money has value. The value of a thing is a matter of need or desire. Goods and services are “valuable” only so far as they serve you and further your goals.

Which brings us to the primary importance of reflecting on and distinguishing between wants and needs. This isn’t to suggest that you need to strip away any convenience or comfort from your life, but accurate observation means knowing your indulgences and thinking about their value in your system.

The second great misunderstanding is about the economy, which we commonly talk about as if it was one great amorphous thing that only the experts can understand. (This is a fallacy because they clearly either don’t really understand it or they are massively incompetent*.) 

In his book The Wealth of Nature; economics as if survival mattered John Michael Greer distinguishes 3 distinct economic spheres. The primary economy is the economy of nature. It is made up of all the “goods and services” provided by a healthy intact ecosystem. All our natural resources, renewable and non-renewable, mineral and biological, including air, water, and soil. All the natural processes like purifying water, absorbing pollutants, neutralizing toxins, controlling pests and reducing contamination** are part of the primary economy.

The secondary economy is the economy of productive human activity. This is the area of real goods and essential services created using human time, labour, and skill. The food in the grocery store; the water from your tap; the tangible material goods that provide necessities, comforts, and conveniences.

And finally we come to the tertiary economy. The economic sector referred to as F.I.R.E. Finance, Insurance, Real Estate. This is where people buy and sell currency and flip condos and generally use money to make money. It includes the stock markets and the precious metals markets.*** This is the place where most of the economic manipulations take place. 

Growth of this sector over the last several decades has stood in for “economic recovery” and masked the steady contraction of the secondary economy. The economic manipulations of “the experts” and the metastatic expansion of the F.I.R.E. sector has created a widening gap between the very rich and most ordinary people.

The good news is that this third economic sector has become so divorced from the economy of real goods and services that it could probably disappear completely with no discernible negative impact. 

The point is that most of what going on doesn’t help us and insulating ourselves from the boom and bust cycle of the official economy as best we can is essential to our well being.  

Working with the resources we have, and investing our time and attention judiciously is the key to maximizing true value in our lives and communities. To do this we need to shake ourselves loose from our ideas about money and look at the other forms of capital available to us. 

We’ve already discussed Natural Capital: the capital of intact environments and the natural processes that provide the foundation for productive human economic activity. The second type of capital is Human Capital, the skills, knowledge, ingenuity, and abilities of individuals. Human capital is fragile. Knowledge and skill are both easily lost if not used and passed on.  

The final type of capital, Social Capital, is the social relationships of trust, reciprocity, and solidarity built up in a community over time. It is the shared knowledge, understandings, and patterns of interaction that a group of people bring to any productive activity. Social capital is extremely fragile. It takes time to develop. It’s non-transferable and easily eroded. 

I want to say that social capital is the one we have most ignored, disregarded, and diminished but in truth, all three types of capital have been badly eroded over many decades and all three are in desperate need of being restored and rebuilt. 

Which brings us back to the question of how best to invest our time energy and attention when so much needs to be done, and the scramble of day to day existence leaves us so little of any of these things to invest.

The permaculture guidelines “Get A Yield” and “Catch and store energy” tell us to prioritize investment in activities that produce or conserve tangible resources, energy, or useful skills. Yield is alway the total production and accumulation within the system. The build up of any of the three forms of capital within the system is part of the yield.

The primary principles “Observe and reflect” and “Make the least change for the greatest possible benefit” direct us to find and start with small easily accomplished projects and build incrementally. This may mean employing some kind of personal S.W.O.T. analysis**** and developing a strategic plan to  improve your existing skills. 

Building up your personal “human capital,” your practical skills, knowledge, ingenuity, is the best possible investment because a skill once acquired is yours for life. Investing in skills and tools is an expansion of your personal resources and your potential for future investment. 

The permaculture principle “Get a yield” reminds us to engage in both short term and long term planning. Your personal planning should encompass your long term goals and aspirations but start with building up your repertoire of immediately useful skills. Small projects that provide a short term yield allow energy and resources to accumulate in the system for larger future investment. Small experiments allow you to evaluate and reflect on the results so you can determine whether more investment is worthwhile or if you would be better off turning your attention to some other aspect of the project.   

Observe — reflect — act — repeat.

This is the end of the introductory sections outlining the overall focus of this project (start here,) and reviewing your situation (start here) and setting yourself up to ride out the waves of change as gracefully as possible (here). In the next several sections we will revisit many of these ideas in more depth and with a mind to the ultimate goals of this blog: creating lives worth living; building a future worth having; and becoming a force for renewal and regeneration.

*To be fair economics is a complex system and interventions in complex systems can have unintended consequences. This is why the permaculture principles emphasis observation and reflection and making and observing the effects of minimal incremental changes.

** Brett Weinstein and Heather Heying’s recent Darkhorse podcast provided a fascinating look at the role of vultures in reducing and removing the biological hazards of carrion. (link)  

*** With some exceptions gold and silver are only resources if you are a jeweller or metal worker. Otherwise they are not much different from any other medium of exchange. They are only valuable if the resource you need or want is available. 

****There are several other useful analytical tools to guide your observations and reflections. Try a few and see what insights they provide. https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/alternatives-to-swot-analysis/