The Economics of Life and the Economics of Death

How to Do the Work of the 21st Century

What do you see when look around the world today? Are you instantly a little exhausted just scanning the headlines? I am. Here’s what I see.

I see a planet scarred and broken. Whose lungs are black and whose bones are melting. Ravaged and raped by centuries of exploitation, treated like another slave, another commodity, strip-mined for profit. But now the oceans are rising in rebellion. Now the fire and flood are beginning to whisper.

I see economies stagnating. I see democracy slowly withering away. I see people in such psychological distress that it goes largely unnoticed. I see rage, ignorance, despair, emptiness, futility, mistrust, and depression all rising. I see whole new kinds of grief and mourning taking shape, like “climate grief.” I see hate gathering like a hurricane, in nation after nation — people, disappointed in empty promises of prosperity that never came to be, turn on their friends, neighbours, colleagues.

I see a world in profound, deep distress, my friends.

I was asked recently: what’s the work of the 21st century? The answer is as simple as it is hard: the work of this century is healing the terrible wounds of the last few centuries. The injuries of capitalism, of technology, of “growth.” Of societies and organizations and minds still built for and on — at least if we are honest — supremacy, patriarchy, bigotry, too. Of a backwards, thoughtless way of life that posited everything — including us — is only there to be exploited, abused, and thrown away — that we celebrated as “civilized”, as “the end of history”. The work of the 21st century is all that. It begins with a certain kind of mindset, and goes from organizational to institutional to social to cultural to political. The mindset of the 21st century places healing and mending and becoming and maturing above violence and profit and status and gain.

What have we injured, as a result of (not contemplating) the path we were on? The better question is: what haven’t we injured? The environment, ourselves, our kids, our futures, our societies. All these things are badly, badly, wounded, my friends. 

We are a world that is severely injured, traumatized, damaged, environmentally, psychologically, socially, economically, culturally. Do you see how badly injured the world is today? The planet. Countries. Economies. Societies. Democracy. People. Can you feel it? I can. You should. You should sit quietly in a cafe watching people until you can feel just how badly distressed the soul of the world is. How injured and broken it is. Is there such a thing, such a feeling? Do you think you can lead anyone anywhere that matters if you don’t there is?

Are the injuries of the world mortal? That question contains in it the work of the 21st century. Let me be a little more specific. The work of this century is healing, mending, tending, cultivating. It is nurturing and nourishing. It is reimagining and rebuilding. What? All these broken systems. It is their jagged edges which are injuring us. Our systems are old now. They are industrial — the economic ones. They are pre-industrial — the political ones. They are built on pre-modern foundations of slavery and racism still, often — the social ones. They are completely obsolete now, totally out of date, unfit for the challenges of this new century.

Let me put those broken systems in three categories. First, capitalism — reimagining the ideas of “profit”, “corporations”, “jobs”, “money”, and so forth. Second, political economy — rethinking the ideas of “rights” and “governments” and “democracy” itself, and the purposes which they are there for — those purposes can’t just be “GDP” and “growth” anymore, but something more like the maximum of human happiness, while all things, every river, tree, and mountain, reaches its potential, lives to its fullest. Third, which is the biggest, “society” and “civilization” — are we civilized people just because we have hidden children in Africa mine our diamonds? Are we civilized if the purpose of our lives is to pile up more money? What is the purpose of our societies, anyways? Just to get rich? Or to allow every being in them — from the insect to the flower — to flourish? Which way are we really richer?