Reproduced from: http://docslide.us/documents/interconnectedness-of-world-problems-a-conceptual-map-by-fritjof-capra-based.html
Category: Economics
“Economics and Economists Engulfed By Crises: What Do We Tell the Students?” by Kamran Mofid and Steve Szeghi
The recent global crisis has lead to questions about whether the kind of economics that is taught in universities was responsible for the crisis itself, or indeed for its widespread failure to predict the timing and magnitude of the events that unfolded in 2008. There are many reasons for such failure. However, whatever the reasons might be, we strongly believe that now is the time for us all to begin to debate this issue and to discover what is it that we should now teach our students.
While the global financial crisis is most surely a significant peril, it is not the most significant problem that human beings or this planet face. There are two larger crises of which it is a part and which grow in immensity and difficulty to solve by the day, and which were in turn caused by many of the same philosophies, misguided ethics, flawed economics and politics that helped to spawn the financial meltdown. These two larger crises, of which we speak, are the crisis of growing inequality, economic insecurity and social injustice and the crisis of the environment which imperils an abundant diversity of life on earth as well as human survival.
It is our hope that with this paper we may begin an open dialogue with all concerned – colleagues, students and others, so that together we can prescribe a working solution.
It is clear that some serious reflection is in order. Not to stand back and question what has happened and why, would be to compound failure with failure: failure of vision with failure of responsibility. If nothing else these current crises of finance, social injustice and environmental devastation present us with a unique opportunity to address the shortcomings of our profession with total honesty and humility while returning the “dismal science” to its true position: a subject of beauty, wisdom and virtue.
A Collection of Articles by Prof Tom Murphy on Why Energy and Entropy Matters
Excerpted from: http://library.fora.tv/2011/10/26/Growth_Has_an_Expiration_Date Tom Murphy is an associate professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego. He currently leads a project to test General Relativity by bouncing laser pulses off of the reflectors left on the Moon by the Apollo astronauts, achieving one-millimeter range precision. Murphy’s keen interest in energy topics began with his… Read More
The Role of Energy in Production / Value Theory, Thermodynamics and Dialectics / “Debt Matters” by Prof Steve Keen
Reproduced from: http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2016/08/19/incorporating-energy-into-production-functions/ Incorporating energy into production functions By Steve Keen August 19, 2016 Debtwatch In my last post on my Debtwatch blog, I finished by saying that the Physiocrats were the only School of economics to properly consider the role of energy in production. They ascribed it solely to agriculture exploiting the free energy of… Read More
Why “The World is a Total Mess” and Money is at the Root of it All
How do we begin to explain the total mess the world is in, and why money is the root of it all?
Energy in living systems is all too often equated with money in economy, and vice versa. This has misled generations of biologists and economists alike. As we have seen, living energy transactions are always tied to real interactions and exchanges between molecules with minimum dissipation. For money to be equivalent to energy, it too, has to be tied to exchanges in real goods and services. Unfortunately, money has become more and more decoupled from real goods and services, and hence more like entropy than energy. It becomes entropy in unequal exchanges when the price paid is too low, as in exploitative labor or between currencies that are grossly overvalued on the side of the purchaser. The money market is especially entropic [25,44,48], because it is not based on any real-valued goods or services; furthermore, it artificially inflates the purchasing power of the rich, leading to greater exploitation of environmental resources. This becomes more explicit when the medium for energy exchange in the living system is considered.
A Collection of Articles on Structural Violence and its Impact on Peaceful Coexistence and Healthy Flourishing for ALL Life
Violence, Peace and Peace Research by Johan Galtung (1969) “…violence is present when human beings are being influenced so that their actual somatic and mental realizations are below their potential realizations… …Violence is here defined as the cause of the difference between the potential and the actual, between what could have been and what is…… Read More
Enlightening the Shadow Side of Banking – Monetization of Negotiable Debts by the Few as Instruments of Enslavement of the Many
http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/10/people-simply-empty-out.html https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws?pid=29502 by Ivo Mosley http://www.cobdencentre.org/author/ivo-mosley/ Ivo Mosley studied Japanese for a first degree and Musical Theatre for an MA. He has written fiction, plays, and cultural criticism for many publications, both mainstream and fringe. He became interested in money creation while writing on the illusion of democracy, identifying money-creation by banks as the murkiest… Read More
Unthinkable, unspeakable and untouchable? Coming to terms with the fake “realities” of our time!
Over the past year, I have been trying to come to terms with the fake “realities” of our time. It appears that we now live in an age of deception and illusions and in an age of insanity on a global scale. We are beginning to appreciate that many of our chronic physical, mental, and social diseases are “normal” adaptations to abnormal circumstances, be they due to mutagenic genetic inheritances, life-despoiling environmental exposures or unhealthy lifestyle choices forced upon us by life-disabling social determinants. Unbelievably, most of these “abnormalities” have been enabled and sustained by our institutions of governance that have put the primacy of money-value over and above that of life value! As a result of this perpetual war on the value of life, we end up legitimizing and normalizing dysfunctional and pathological thinking and behaviour, and as a result we are oblivious to the damage we are doing to ourselves, our communities and our planet, even when the evidence of our maladaptive behaviours are “hidden” right there in plain sight. Even worse, we end up celebrating the “wisdom” of psychopaths whom we chose as stewards of our institutions. These “wise psychopaths” have maintained their priviledge by mastering the science and art of perception managment as they have endeavoured and continue to do so by cognitively framing our collective false perceptions into their “true reality”.
Regenerative Development: The Art and Science of Creating Durably Vibrant Human Networks by Dr Sally Goerner
Regeneration refers to the self-feeding, self-renewing processes that natural systems use to nourish their capacity to thrive for long periods of time and their ability to adapt to unexpected, sometimes threatening circumstances. No system can sustain itself over the long-term, if it is not designed to continuously regenerate.
Regenerative development uses the universal laws of systemic health and self-renewal to show how we can develop durably vibrant socio-economic systems as well. It uses the empirical study of flow-networks to make this idea precise.
This approach to development suggests new answers to a critical question for our uncertain times: Can the tools of development be used, not just for episodic interventions that provide short-term relief, but to build the long-term regenerative capacities of local communities and economies? In other words, can the enterprise networks we develop be both profitable and also serve as engines of long-term, regenerative vitality?
This paper explores how Regenerative development backed by the empirical science of flow networks can create a rigorous, commonsense, actionable theory of systemic economic health that:
- Identifies the key factors behind regenerative vitality including the relational structures and social norms needed to create widespread well-being and abundant opportunities;
- Organizes much of what is already known into a working model of systemic health that allows us to address the root causes as well as the symptoms of economic dysfunction;
- Clarifies the connection between moral imperatives and the proper economic functioning;
- Provides effective measures and clear targets for such key factors as inclusivity, resilience, balance, reciprocity, and circulation.
Shifting from Central Planning to a Decentralised Economy: Do we Need Central Banks? – Professor Werner
“Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings”
John F. Kennedy
Speech at the American University, Washington, D. C., 10 June 1963
