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Sacred Economics 1 CHARLES EISENSTEIN Sacred Economics Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition By Charles Eisenstein Sacred Economics 2 CHARLES EISENSTEIN To my parents and all others who have given me so much with no thought of return Sacred Economics 3 CHARLES EISENSTEIN Table of Contents Table of Contents Sacred Economics..........................................................................................................................1 Introduction......................................................................................................................................5 Part I: The Economics of Separation.....................................................................................................10 Chapter 1: The Gift World.............................................................................................................10 Chapter 2: The Illusion of Scarcity................................................................................................18 Chapter 3: Money and the Mind....................................................................................................25 Chapter 4: The Trouble with Property...........................................................................................34 Chapter 5: The Corpse of the Commons......................................................................................44 Cultural and Spiritual Capital................................................................................................44 The Strip-Mining of Community............................................................................................47 The Creation of Needs.........................................................................................................48 The Money Power................................................................................................................52 Chapter 6: The Economics of Usury.............................................................................................55 An Economic Parable...........................................................................................................56 The Growth Imperative.........................................................................................................58 The Concentration of Wealth................................................................................................60 Wealth Redistribution and Class War...................................................................................64 Inflation.................................................................................................................................67 More for You Is Less for Me.................................................................................................68 Chapter 7: The Crisis of Civilization .............................................................................................71 Chapter 8: The Turning of the Age................................................................................................78 Money: Story and Magic Humanity’s Coming-of-Age Ordeal Part II: The Economics of Reunion........................................................................................................88 Chapter 9: The Story of Value.......................................................................................................88 Chapter 10: The Law of Return.....................................................................................................95 Chapter 11: Currencies of the Commons...................................................................................101 Chapter 12: Negative-Interest Economics..................................................................................108 History and Background.....................................................................................................109 Modern Application and Theory..........................................................................................113 The Debt Crisis: Opportunity for Transition Thinking for the Future........................................................................................................119 More for Me Is More for You...............................................................................................123 Chapter 13: Steady-State and Degrowth Economics.................................................................130 Sustainability Reconsidered...............................................................................................130 Transition to Steady-State: Bump or Crash? .....................................................................131 Shrinking Money, Growing Wealth.....................................................................................136 Disintermediation and the P2P Revolution.........................................................................138 Chapter 14: The Social Dividend................................................................................................140 The Paradox of Leisure......................................................................................................140 The Obsolescence of “Jobs”..............................................................................................142 Sacred Economics 4 CHARLES EISENSTEIN The Will to Work.................................................................................................................145 Who Shall Remove the Garbage?......................................................................................147 Chapter 15: Local and Complementary Currency......................................................................150 The Catch-22 of Local Currency........................................................................................152 Experiments in Local Money..............................................................................................156 Reclaiming the Credit Commons........................................................................................159 Chapter 16: Transition to Gift Economy......................................................................................163 Chapter 17: Summary and Roadmap.........................................................................................168 1. Negative-Interest Currency............................................................................................168 2. Elimination of Economic Rents, and Compensation for Depletion of the Commons.....169 3. Internalization of Social and Environmental Costs.........................................................170 4. Economic and Monetary Localization............................................................................171 5. The Social Dividend........................................................................................................172 6. Economic Degrowth ......................................................................................................172 7. Gift Culture and P2P Economics....................................................................................173 Part III: Living the New Economy........................................................................................................174 Chapter 18: Relearning Gift Culture...........................................................................................175 Chapter 19: Nonaccumulation....................................................................................................182 Chapter 20: Right Livelihood and Sacred Investing...................................................................188 The Dharma of Wealth.......................................................................................................188 Robbing Peter to Pay Paul.................................................................................................190 Old Accumulations to New Purposes.................................................................................194 Right Livelihood..................................................................................................................196 Chapter 21: Working in the Gift...................................................................................................198 Trusting Gratitude...............................................................................................................198 Business in the Gift.............................................................................................................200 The Sacred Professions.....................................................................................................203 Chapter 22: Community and the Unquantifiable.........................................................................206 Chapter 23: A New Materialism...................................................................................................210 Conclusion: The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Tell Us Is Possible......................................214 Appendix: Quantum Money and the Reserve Question.............................................................218 Bibliography................................................................................................................................224 Sacred Economics 5 CHARLES EISENSTEIN Introduction The purpose of this book is to make money and human economy as sacred as everything else in the universe. Today we associate money with the profane, and for good reason. If anything is sacred in this world,
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