Moving

The Economic Resilience blog is moving to a new home.

You can find all my latest posts about the economy, the Transition movement, and much more, over at www,Change-Making.com

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A Gratitude Economy

In many spiritual circles, it is popular to talk about gratitude.  Gratitude encompasses much more than a quickie “thank you.”  It implies a much deeper state of mind, one that practitioners realize will position you to receive even greater abundance.

Gratitude – together with all the volumes that have been written about it – is very much an ingredient of the gift economy.  A very beautiful ingredient, which enriches our hearts and spirits, at the same time as it potentially invites more substantial and tangible gifts.

Some communities are beginning to set up "gift circles" -- a collection of people who want to engage in gifting practices on a regular basis.  But you don't need to wait for an official gift circle.  Here's how you can get gift economy concepts rolling right now.

Hau to be erotic: going deeper into the gift economy

Gifts have the function of bonding communities together.  ... If your entire life is nothing but money transactions, ... then you don't have community because you don't need anybody. 
-- Charles Eisenstein, Amsterday Sept 2009 http://youtu.be/cS07gM74tww

My dad just gave me a brand-new sawzall reciprocating saw.  Yesterday its maiden voyage helped to repair the rainwater harvesting tanks at the community garden.  In the spirit of gifting (in Maori they call it hau), with this “second giving” the sawzall entered into the gift economy.

A future that is ...

Low-carbon
Post-petroleum
Socially just
More fulfilling
… ???

In an article which is unfortunately no longer available online, Don Hall (at one time part of Transition Colorado) wrote that “sustainability” wasn’t exactly an enticing goal; that to him it sounded like a deadened eventual destination. His example: “How is your relationship with your spouse?” “Um … it’s sustainable …” Hall advocated for the excitement of ongoing innovation. Perhaps this is akin to the flexible balance and continuous evolution we see in natural systems.

The future won’t look the way it used to. And it won’t look like “green” corporate jobs with steady salaries that auto-pay to your mortgage. It’s much more likely to look like a village full of small proprietors:

Elliott trades chicken eggs, Christine knits socks. Kitty and Carol grow vegetables with compost made by Gene, and Kevin harvests honey. John and Jerry build more gardens, while Julian builds water barrels from found materials that Larry scavenged. Robert guides teams in building from earth and other locally-available materials. Meanwhile David repairs and rebuilds bicycles.

We’ll turn to Hannah and Linda for healing herbs and to Mary Pat for guidance as we care for our elders. Steve, Carolyn and Jocelyn keep art and music alive in our lives. Edgar facilitates the council circle of “governance,” and Peter bakes bread as he listens to your troubles.

Formal degrees and certifications in these skills will likely be irrelevant; most of these adaptation-dependent creative abilities were learned through apprenticeship and in-the-trenches explorative experience. We’ll know via community word-of-mouth who is able and dependable.

There will probably be few U.S. dollars in our pockets. We may carry markers for several different local area currencies, each with a specific purpose. We may participate in multiple informal sharing arrangements. Several of us will have lost our homes so we now double-up in housing. We participate in group purchasing to reduce the costs of those few things that we do buy from other communities.

Some people within our neighborhood might still long for the ways of the past, when the airport was roaring and cars zipped us anywhere we could imagine. But others of us will focus instead on what we have gained: meaningful work, a sense of contentment, and a deep connection with each other and with this specific geography we call home.

Click here to start at "page one" of the booklet.

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Introduction

About "Economic Resilience"

When it comes to change-making, I tend to be the person you’ll find wielding a shovel, either literally or figuratively. Although I spend plenty of time talking in meetings, I feel happiest when I’m out there getting things done. With that shovel in hand, you can really see progress.

I tire quickly of environmental and social change books where 80% of the book convinces you of today’s problems and how bad they are, with only the final skimpy chapter telling you what you might do about it. I’m also tired of books that present theoretical and inaccessible “solutions”—things that have never been tried before, never been achieved before anywhere on the planet. Give me my shovel; I need something tangible to work with.

Economics isn’t necessarily like that. There is plenty of economic change-making that has to take place in meeting rooms and only a limited amount that is tangible and can be attacked with a shovel. But in this booklet I have tried my best to point the way toward the corners where the “shovels” and “pickaxes” are stashed, for those who are eager to get down to work.

A few of these things can be done alone or with a single family. But almost all of them need to be done at a community level, because that’s where ECONOMICS takes place: it all boils down to transactions between people.

Part I of this booklet explains the problems, because we shovel‑wielders really should understand what we are working with in order to begin to solve it. Part II critiques what several economic theorists see as possible routes forward for the “big picture” economy.

But the central question of this booklet is what we can do at the grassroots level. Part III (approximately 70% of the booklet) offers a panorama of concrete and practical examples, ideas, and resources for building local economic resilience. If you’re a really hard-core shovel‑wielder, go ahead and skip to [page reference] and begin there.

Part III begins, not with some utopian fantasy of where we could be in the distant future, but with where we are right now: surrounded by a crumbling economy, saddled with rent to pay and children to feed. What can we do to survive?

The idea of resilience comes from the study of ecology. It’s really about how systems, settlements, withstand shock from the outside ... that they don’t just unravel, and fall to pieces. ... It’s about building modularity into what we do, building surge breakers into how we organize the basic things that support us.

-- Rob Hopkins, 2009 TED talk

Note: The entries in this blog software were not uploaded in order. To read the booklet in order, follow the orange "next section" links at the bottom of each post.

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Like what we do?

Don't let it stop here.

In keeping with Charles Eisenstein's gift culture, versions of this booklet are being offered to the public free of charge. Eisenstein reminds us “a gift transaction is open-ended, creating an ongoing tie between the participants.” We have an ongoing tie, you and I.

I invite you to participate in the gift culture too.

Re-gift this gift: Share this information, share what you have learned here. Encourage others to read this booklet. Distribute the 2-page handout widely. Teach others about these ideas. Most of all, put these ideas into action -- together. Grow community preparedness.

Our peace, security, and survival are counting on you.

This is the conclusion of the "Economic Resilience" document.
Return to the beginning of the action: Part III

Why it must be Grassroots

If we wait for the governments, it'll be too little, too late
If we act as individuals, it'll be too little
But if we act as communities, it might just be enough, just in time.
– Transition movement, Cheerful Disclaimer

[full text forthcoming]

Joanne's thoughts about why we must use grassroots efforts to achieve transformative change, are in these places online:

• "Building Bridges" to local government
• reflections on the writings of James Gustave Speth
• thoughts as part of building the Shadow Structure

A compiled version is forthcoming.

The Commons

[text forthcoming]

7. New economic indicators

“The economy is hurting!”

“How do you know?”

“Well, the Dow Jones is falling, GDP is below projections, and the number of new jobs didn’t pan out ...”

These are examples of economic indicators. They’re our measuring sticks, the way we determine whether (or how far) we’re moving in the right direction. Our conventional set of economic indicators -- which also includes things like shareholder profits, bottom-line, and sales volume -- measures economic growth and profit. Period.

Measurements of how much that multinational corporation contributed to global warming, or how many children are suffering from asthma in the neighborhood around the Torrance oil refineries, simply don’t figure into Wall Street calculations. In other words, the conventional indicators – the benchmarks, the landmarks of success – are horribly broken. Maximizing the old indicators has lead us very far astray.

As we attempt to assist businesses in setting a new direction into a new, post‑growth paradigm, new indicators will be essential. We will need to help businesses replace old indicators with new ways of measuring. We have to offer new targets to head towards.

Possible new indicators

Some creative people have set out to invent new “alternative” indicators which include such things as environmental impact, social justice, and life satisfaction or happiness. These include the Genuine Progress Indicator and the Happy Planet Index.

In the Transition Handbook (at pages 174-175) there was a sample list of "Resilience Indicators." These measure things like aspects of Relocalization, reduction of energy use, and sharing – the types of things that will help our local communities to survive the triple crisis and evolve into greater well-being.

“A resilience indicator is something that allows us to get a sense of whether or not the community is moving towards or away from resilience, and is something that can be returned to over time and checked to see if we are moving in the right direction” -- Shaun Chamberlin, The Transition Timeline

Here in L.A. in one session we began to adapt those Indicators for more local issues. Your community probably will too.

Your local indicators will be driven by local issues. For instance, here in L.A. water is very important (water didn’t even appear in the Transition Handbook list!). Decreasing L.A.’s dependence on the automobile is critical, thus bicycle- and pedestrian-defined indicators will become important.

David Holmgren offers us the Permaculture Flower diagram [bottom of this post] which lays out in a simple daisy the many spheres of human experience. The economic system of the future will have to develop resilience-building and more-sustainable practices in each of the petals. Thus each of the petals contains ideas for potential new indicators.

All of these indicators mean that you’ll need some ways of Measurement. Look around your local community – it may be that someone else is already measuring some of the right things. Perhaps you can pull water stats from the local water department, bicycle stats from the local advocacy group, and gardening stats from the local University Extension. It’s yet another reason to build strategic partnerships with like-minded organizations.

The long-term importance of Resilience Indicators

By creating, compiling, and publishing new resilience-oriented indicators, Transition initiatives have a lot to offer the wider community. Initially, the new indicators would serve as a guide, perhaps helping to raise awareness and helping to develop a different sense of what is valued within the community (The Great Revaluation).

As the community begins to establish an Energy Descent Action Plan – and perhaps gets local government to endorse it – Resilience Indicators can serve as benchmarks. They help people see that progress is being made toward the community’s long-term goals.

These Resilience Indicators could also begin to serve as informal policy. And as our local communities begin to experience Relocalization-driven decoupling, we can encourage our local scene to embrace the new indicators as the new measure of success.

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Sample Resilience Indicators

(compiled from Rob Hopkins, Transition Handbook; Shaun Chamberlin, The Transition Timeline; Transition in Action: Totnes Energy Descent Action Plan; and group work of Transition Los Angeles)

• Cutting carbon emissions
• % of local trade carried out in local currency
• % of food consumed locally that was produced within a given radius
• The ratio of car parking space to productive land use
• Degree of engagement in practical Transition work by the local community
• Decrease in volume of traffic on local roads
• Number of businesses owned by local people
• % of the community employed locally
• % of essential goods manufactured within a given radius
• % of local building materials used in new housing developments
• % of energy consumed in the town that has been generated by local energy supply company
• Amount of sixteen year-olds able to grow 10 different varieties of vegetables to a given degree of basic competency
• % of medicines prescribed locally that have been produced within a given radius.
• People’s level of optimism that change is possible
• Number of people who are active members of car-share clubs
• % of local society engaged in Transition-type projects and activities
• % of new buildings which meet passive house standards; % of local homes that have been retrofitted to maximum possible standard
• % of population who have trained in specific transition skills: academic, practical, personal development
• Average amount of energy produced by buildings in local community
• % of water use that was locally-captured rainwater
• The ratio of non-permeable hardscape to surfaces adapted for rainwater capture and infiltration
• The ratio of wastewater sent to sewer versus onsite greywater reclamation
• Degree to which existing buildings are insulated and retrofitted for passive solar attributes
• Number of local “inner work” professionals (mental health professionals, counselors, spiritual and religious leaders, etc.) who are prepared to work with the issues that arise as people cope with a radically new direction for the future
• Amount (ideally decreasing) of trash sent to landfills and exported for “recycling” processing
• % of households and businesses participating in local area composting and soil building
• Number of members in LETSystems/Time Banks; number of transactions completed through LETSystems/Time Banks

Other Resilience Indicator ideas:

• Genuine Progress Indicator http://www.rprogress.org/publications/2007/GPI2006_ExecSumm.pdf
• Happy Planet Index www.happyplanetindex.org/
• Gross National Happiness http://www.grossnationalhappiness.com/gnhIndex/gnhIndexVariables.aspx

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