Sacred Economics: Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition

Our money derives its value from the right to harvest 300,000 tons of cod from the Newfoundland cod fishery, the right to draw 30 million gallons of water monthly from the Ogallala Aquifer, the right to emit 10 billion tons of CO2, the right to pump 2 billion barrels of oil from the ground, the use of the X-microhertz band of the electromagnetic sp

limitless desire arises with money.

Concentration of wealth—both income and assets—is an inescapable corollary of debt growing faster than goods and services.

Negative interest on currency must accompany Georgist or Gesellian levies on land as well, and indeed on any other source of “economic rents.” The physical commons of land, the genome, the ecosystem, and the electromagnetic spectrum, as well as the cultural commons of ideas, inventions, music, and stories, must be subject to the same carry costs as

—Lester Brown

some of the most painful times of my life were when I was unfulfilled in my work, when I was not applying my gifts toward a purpose I believed in. I remember quite well a meeting with a software company in Taiwan, where I worked as a translator and business consultant in my twenties. We were discussing some new technology, 3D sound or something lik

sojourn of separation from that divinity, and created a world in which ruthless sociopaths rise to wealth and power.

The essential differences all arise from specific relationships that incorporate

Any factory that figures out a way to use less of the commons—for example, to make less pollution, or to use recycled metal from old junkyards—will be able to reduce its costs and earn a higher profit.