Economics of Abundance
Book: Wolfgang Hoeschele. The Economics of Abundance: A Political Economy of Freedom, Equity, and Sustainability.
Description
"The “economics of abundance” is based on a critique of our present economic system, which finds value only in scarce commodities – i.e., things which can be sold at a high price because demand exceeds supply. Because this economy depends on demand always outstripping supplies, it also depends on “scarcity-generating institutions” – institutions that either manipulate supply or demand in order to keep us in a constant state of need.
An economy of abundance seeks to dismantle or reform these scarcity-generating institutions in such a way as to affirm our freedom to live life as art (self-expression to others), social equity (so that everyone can live life as art), and sustainability (so that all life can thrive into the future). Among other things, this implies a much greater role for various forms of shared property, individual and community-level self-reliance, and participatory decision-making." (http://shareable.net/blog/event-the-economics-of-abundance)
Contents
Wolfgang Hoeschele:
Of particular interest to P2P Foundation readers:
The beginning of chapter 2 gives a brief discussion of what I mean with "scarcity-generating institutions." The next several chapters are an in-depth treatment of this.
"The section "Wholeness and the art of living" in chapter 7 explains what I mean with art of living and why this offers a way forward; we'd obviously have to use only a part of this.
Chapters 8 and 9 provide my discussion of solutions. I call "contributory" are the ones which increase the more they are used, especially knowledge). Chapter 8 as a whole discusses what kinds of property rights are appropriate for what kinds of resources and resources uses, delineating all the different types of resource uses where common property is either the only alternative to open access, or where it is more appropriate than private or state property (a flow chart on p. 149 condenses a lot of this argument into one page). Since there are so many areas where common property needs to be further developed, I go into some of the management issues for common property in "Managing the Commons," for example, by discussing water distribution systems.
In Chapter 9, I first define the "self" in self-reliance as somebody living in relationships to a larger community that supports life as art, I then discuss things such as land refom, community gardens, water harvesting, transport policies in favor of non-motorized mobility, creation of health-promoting environments, and local generation of renewable energy as self-reliant/cooperative production, and alternative currencies and the like as forms of equitable exchange. The chapter ends with a discussion of strategies for change, focusing on coalition building and a suggestion to establish "Abundance Arts Centers" that could help bring people together and create synergy among them."
The TOC of the book:
1 The Paradox of Our Times 1
Human Needs and Wants 2
Creating Addiction 9
Depletion and Degradation of Natural Resources 12
Is There an Alternative? 14
Part I The Production of Scarcity
2 Oppressive Scarcities 19
Religion and Ideology 20
Privilege and Subordination 22
Violence 28
3 Exploitative Scarcities 31
Property 31
Monopolies and Oligopolies 41
Exchange Systems 50
4 The Creation of Needs 61
Transportation 64
Healthcare 66
Education 69
Time 70
5 A Global Geography of Scarcity 73
The International Division of Labor 74
Commodity Networks 77
Population 102
6 Systems of Control 111
The State 111
Finance 114
Knowledge Control 120
The Military 124
Frenzy 127
Part II paths towards abundance
7 The Art of Living 131
Wholeness and the Art of Living 132
Civil Rights and Liberties 144
8 Resource-Use Rights 147
Contributory Resource Uses 150
Neutral Resource Uses 157
Rivalrous Resource Uses 159
Managing the Commons 166
Undermining Monopolies 176
9 Reclaiming Self-Reliance and Cooperation 181
Self-Reliance and Cooperation in Productive Activities 182
Equitable Exchange Relationships 195
Strategies for Change 201
Bibliography 209
Index 233
Excerpts
Introduction
Wolfgang Hoeschele:
Is There an Alternative? (pp. 14-16)
In light of considerations such as these, there is a widespread belief that “there is no alternative” to the capitalist system; there is even an acronym for this phrase (TINA). In other words, people believe that there is no freedom of choice about how we are to organize our economy and society. At the same time, growing numbers of people around the world recognize that this same system may spell our doom because it destroys the resources needed to sustain a population of billions of human beings. “Realism” indicates that only minor tinkering with the system is feasible; at the same time, a different kind of realism tells us that this tinkering is ridiculously inadequate. For example, the Kyoto Protocol is claimed to be at one and the same time the best agreement that world leaders could possibly achieve to attempt to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, and a far cry from what would be necessary in order to actually stop further global warming. We face the predicament that “realistic” action is insufficient to ward off real dangers, and is implicitly based on the wishful thinking that the problem (including the potential for massive population collapse and ecological destruction) will just go away if we ignore it long enough. Actions sufficient to prevent the real dangers, meanwhile, are considered utopian, because people would not accept the reimposition of scarcities that they believe we have long overcome.
In this book, I argue that it is possible to overcome this yawning chasm between realisms, that it is possible to work toward individual freedom, social justice, and ecological sustainability all at the same time, if we fundamentally reconceive our notions of scarcity and abundance, thereby creating a new approach to studying human needs and wants and their fulfillment, and applying the insights of that study to our actions. In this project, I build on a wide range of literature in the social sciences—after all, people have been criticizing capitalism ever since it emerged, and various among them have pointed out how scarcity is consciously created by at least some capitalist institutions (examples include Illich 1974, 1975; Harvey 1974; Lappé and Collins 1977; Gorz 1989, 1999; Xenos 1989; Yapa 1993, 2002; Korten 1995, 1999; Lietaer 1999; Loy 2002, 2006; and May and Sell 2006). There are also numerous books seeking to establish economic principles for a sustainable and socially just society (examples include Gibson-Graham 1996, 2006; Korten 1999; Daly and Farley 2004; and Porritt 2005). Yet more people have been working at integrating economics with other social sciences more effectively (see, for example, Söderbaum 2008; Nelson 1996). Organizations such as the Institute of Green Economics and the US Solidarity Economy Network are working to connect people who can convert these ideas into reality, and are fostering research to help build alternatives from the ground up. Without the work of these and many other people, I would not have been able to write this book.
However, to my knowledge, no book has been published that uses a systematic critique of the economic concept of scarcity as a window on the entire political economy of today, and as a basis for constructing alternatives that point the way beyond our current social and ecological impasse.10 I attempt to do this first by analyzing how scarcity-generating institutions work (Part I: “The Production of Scarcity”) and then exploring ways in which we can work toward greater abundance (Part II: “Paths Toward Abundance”). Part I moves from modes of scarcity generation that depend on the outright denial of choice and social advancement (Chapter 2: “Oppressive Scarcities”), to modes that constrain choice and thereby help to expropriate people of the products of their labor (Chapter 3: “Exploitative Scarcities”), to modes that create scarcity by manipulating people’s choices so as to increase demand (Chapter 4: “The Creation of Needs”). This is followed by discussions of how multiple scarcitygenerating institutions work together (Chapter 5: “A Global Geography of Scarcity”) and of institutions that ensure that most people play by the rules that favor only an elite few (Chapter 6: “Systems of Control”). Part II opens with a philosophy of living that can serve as the basis for an economics of abundance (Chapter 7: “The Art of Living”) followed by discussions of property rights (Chapter 8: “Resource Use Rights”) and of strategies to promote individual and community-level self-reliance and cooperation (Chapter 9: Reclaiming Self- Reliance and Cooperation”) in support of that philosophy.
Oppressive Scarcities (pp. 19-20)
The discussion in Chapter 1 claims that needs and wants can be consciously generated in order to create profitable scarcities. However, it is important to go beyond such general claims and systematically examine the various methods of scarcity generation. Scarcity, we must remember, is the condition when available goods do not meet current demands. There are basically three ways in which scarcity can be generated. First, the total amount of a good or service can be reduced. For example, the expansion of market activities may reduce the amount of goods provided by nature (such as clean air) or by nonmarket mechanisms (for example, self-provisioning of food, free exchange of knowledge), or those that result from the absence of commercial activities (such as silence and open space). Second, barriers can be placed between people and a good. Of potentially many ways to obtain that good, only one or a few may be left available, leading to the creation of a bottleneck. People can be made to pay in various ways for taking goods through the bottleneck. An example of this mechanism is the elimination of diverse forms of movement to the point that “mobility” is reduced to the use of a privately owned car. Monopolies also fit into this category of scarcity generation—a particular good is available, but must be purchased from a single seller. Third, new wants or needs can be created, or existing ones modified, so that demand for a commodity exceeds supply—for example, by means of advertising, ideological indoctrination, or legal standards. All three basic mechanisms not only increase scarcity, but also curtail freedom by forcing increased expenditures on people and reducing available options of how to satisfy their needs.
Throughout history, we can conceive of social power as having been based in part on the construction of scarcity, but the methods of producing scarcity have continuously changed as a result of changing social circumstances, new technologies, and differing natural environments. Every historical period is characterized not only by varying combinations of methods to create scarcity, but also by specific ways of institutionalizing these methods—that is, its own scarcity-generating institutions. In this chapter, I begin the discussion with several such institutions which are normally considered neither economic nor modern, but which continue to persist and interact with modern economic institutions. Any attempt to avoid the scarcities invented in modern times should also avoid the scarcities created by these older institutions—romanticizing the past will not lead us forward. What these institutions have in common is that they explicitly prohibit people from engaging in certain types of behavior or expressing deviant thoughts, often based on the “station in life” into which they were born. In a word, they oppress.