
Sacred Economics (2012) [pdf] - MichaelAO
http://sacred-economics.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/sacred-economics-book-text.pdf
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MichaelAO
Context:

Sacred Economics traces the history of money from ancient gift economies to
modern capitalism, revealing how the money system has contributed to
alienation, competition, and scarcity, destroyed community, and necessitated
endless growth. Today, these trends have reached their extreme—but in the wake
of their collapse, we may find great opportunity to transition to a more
connected, ecological, and sustainable way of being.

This book is about how the money system will have to change—and is already
changing—to embody this transition. A broadly integrated synthesis of theory,
policy, and practice, Sacred Economics explores avant-garde concepts of the
New Economics, including negative-interest currencies, local currencies,
resource-based economics, gift economies, and the restoration of the commons.
Author Charles Eisenstein also considers the personal dimensions of this
transition, speaking to those concerned with "right livelihood" and how to
live according to their ideals in a world seemingly ruled by money. Tapping
into a rich lineage of conventional and unconventional economic thought,
Sacred Economics presents a vision that is original yet commonsense, radical
yet gentle, and increasingly relevant as the crises of our civilization
deepen.

Sacred Economics official website: [http://sacred-
economics.com](http://sacred-economics.com)

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barry-cotter
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8056597](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8056597)

"Skimming three chapters reveals no sign that the author of the above book
knows first-year undergraduate economics, why the current economy is arranged
the way it is, or what policy tradeoffs would be involved in their hopeful
ideas. May I recommend to you the standard introductory text Intermediate
Microeconomics by Hal Varian, which I recently gave to a friend of mine?"

~~~
ZenoArrow
Whilst reading up on the evolution of our current economy may be worthwhile to
get a fuller understanding of human behaviour, I do not see what relevance it
has in understanding how a fundamentally different economy would work. We
don't expect chemists to study alchemy, we expect them to work with current
day ideas of best practices. Its clear our current economic practices are
fundamentally broken, they're almost a lesson in what not to do.

~~~
eudox
Your personal alternate realities are not historical precedent.

~~~
ZenoArrow
History is not always an accurate means of predicting the future.

If you have questions about my 'personal alternate realities' please feel free
to ask them.

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chipsy
Compare with Binding Chaos[0], which rejects the Eisensteinian gift economy in
favor of a "network-first" approach of stigmergic principles and epistemic
communities(a wavelength similar to Telecomix[1]):

[0]
[http://georgiebc.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/bindingchaos85x...](http://georgiebc.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/bindingchaos85x11.pdf)
[1] [http://telecomix.org/](http://telecomix.org/)

~~~
ZenoArrow
Skimming through that led me to stigmergy as a way to organise social action,
it's an interesting concept, thanks chipsy.
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigmergy](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigmergy)

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enduser
Inspired by Sacred Economics, Kindista is an open-source social network
designed to help people share with other people who live near them. Check it
out at [https://kindista.org/](https://kindista.org/) and/or the Common Lisp
source code at
[https://github.com/kindista/kindista](https://github.com/kindista/kindista)

~~~
eudox
Upvoted for CL.

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futuravenir
I'm working on building a sharing/exchange network with built-in reputation
and points given to people who work for the good of the community. In other
words, the bank generates currency only for those that create value in the
local economy. It's called the Jack of all trades Universe or JoatU for short
and you can read more at [http://joatu.com](http://joatu.com) and check our
github (it is open source of course):
[http://github.com/joatuapp](http://github.com/joatuapp)

Ask me anything.

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fleitz
Possibly the only thing dumber than 'sacred' geometry. At least he should be
able to shuck a few thousand from the new age crowd to sign up for a course
based on this book.

