Tag Archives: economist

Founder's Journal

Observations of December 2015

This blog has remained mostly dormant for the better part of two years while I explored other avenues for leveraging civilitic thinking into the world. And yet, not one of those efforts has created the level of interest that the subject warrants. Even though there is widespread contempt for the economic status quo, it seems that the promise of civilitic society is too divergent for any but the most devoted change-makers to investigate at the level needed to successfully master the material.

Of course, economists will doubtless point to the lack of widespread public interest as evidence that civilitics is flawed in some way. It is something of a self-fulfilling prophesy. One economist with whom I had the opportunity to speak about civilitics, pointed out that he was significantly more valuable to society than most other people, as evidenced by his substantial income. And yet, following his reasoning that income is commensurate with contribution, we should conclude that the contributions of people who receive no financial compensation for their labor, are exactly worthless. However, I do not recommend explaining to stay-at-home care-givers that their daily contribution has no value.

IviCivi: A civilitic social app

IviCivi: A civilitic social app

It is worth mentioning that another, more progressive, economist observed, “I have never seen anything like this before; it solves the [economic] problem of one person one vote.”

So, rather than boxing with the shadows of phantom economists, let me simply affirm that I remain convinced the implementation of a civilitic society (in some form) remains the singular greatest hope for re-civilizing humans and curbing the problems they continue to experience. Upon grasping the breadth of this principle, it becomes abundantly clear that the greatest problems we face are simply because of the illusory need to trade for everything, and the insecurity that accompanies the illusion.

This brings us to December 2015. Many discussions with influential community leaders, educators, social activists, and others, have yielded no spread of civilitic thinking or any motion toward a working civilitic system. My own effort to “walk the talk” and forego compensation in exchange for work has failed to set any notable example for others except, to demonstrate the strong hold exchange economics has upon the world by casting my family into near poverty.

In the past  year, I have created and transferred ownership of the civilitic effort to a new entity: the International Civilitics Institute (ICI). The http://civilitics.org website has morphed from being a simple blog, to representing the public face of the ICI, although it continues to serve both purposes. In addition, the ICI has taken on The IviCivi Project, which is a public campaign to create a civilitic infrastructure as soon as resources can be marshalled. So now the International Civilitics Institute will be able to move forward more deliberately to achieve the goal of a civilitic world.

Examples, Founder's Journal, Philosophy

TEDxPublicStreet: Jodi Beggs

I happen to be a big fan of TEDx. For one thing, it is a sort of quasi-civilitic network, allowing people to give freely of their experience while generating a social reputation in the process. But even moreso, many of the presentations have some really excellent content. Collectively, TEDx is a beautiful gift to the world.

Jodi Beggs at TEDxPublicStreet

One particular TEDx presentation was made by Jodi Beggs at TEDxPublicStreet on January 20, 2013. To her credit, I think Jodi might be about as close to connecting the  civilitics dots as any mainstream economist is likely to be, while still remaining an economist. In her biography, Jodi identifies herself as a hybrid between Steve Levitt, Demetri Martin and Jon Stewart. It is clear that her thinking is motivated as much by ethics as exchange economic dogma. This particular presentation was given at an event with the theme “how people in different fields are using what they know in order to make the world a better place” (her own words). Her presentation is so relevant to civilitics that I could devote several posts to discuss all the material:

  • First of all, Jodi points out that economics was once known as the dismal science. The term derives from concerns by nineteenth-century economists that ending slavery would hamper economic progress and plunge the world into a depression. This discussion provides an excellent entry point to discuss the relationship between slavery, economics, and civilitics. This is nothing new, but civilitics brings the discussion of exchange economics, started by Thomas Carlyle in the mid-nineteenth century, to its full circle conclusion, showing how civilitics is to exchange economics what exchange economics was to slavery. In some respects, exchange economics is really just the new slavery. See my detailed discussion at Economics as a dismal science.
  • Secondly, Jodi speaks extensively about the music industry, which is apparently her specialty. Here again, she goes so far as to almost touch on civilitic systems of production while not quite seeing the possibility. I have a very good friend who is a singer/songwriter, which has caused me to give considerable thought to how civilitics would work for musicians. While discussing the economics of crowd-sourcing, “pay what you want”, and music sharing, Jodi comes very close to bridging the gap to the civilitic paradigm. See my detailed discussion at Civilitics and the music industry.
  • Finally, in passing, Jodi singled out “one pretty famous” economist: Adam Smith. She summarized one of Smith’s basic tenets, saying his “idea of supply and demand of the self-interested producer making things – not because he wants to directly benefit society but because he wants to benefit himself – that actually can be very much in line with doing what’s best for society overall.” Unfortunately, Adam Smith was wrong and Jodi should have emphasize the words “can be” in that quotation.

Over recent years, we have seen many negative consequences of exchange economics. I am encouraged by economists like Jodi who are honestly looking for ways to vision a positive role for economics in the modern world. The effort is honorable and I can imagine how frustrating it must be to really believe in the economic mythology while seeing confronting how it undermines good in the world. I have every expectation that Jodi will be among the first to awaken from the dream (dare I say nightmare?) of the exchange economic machine and realize there is a real alternative within our reach.