Blog of Zoe at Galien Valley
Galien River valley, southwest Michigan, North America

 

Holistic Economy Six Holistic Economic fields: 1. Morals, Love, Awareness, Health 2. Nature Science 3. Nature Art 4. Permaculture Food 5. Landcare 6. Community Culture

I use the word "holistic"
not to narrowly mean herbal medicines alone,
but yes to broadly mean whole culture, including economy, education, science, art, the way we live, learn, work, etc. 

Holistic Economy. During Holistic Days, I show that my whole day supports sustainable community economy by engaging in morals, (science) learning about nature, (art) making stuff from scratch from nature, permaculture food, landcare, and celebration of community culture - all six of these fields together help a person to learn and teach others how to take care of, sustain, and enrich nature and the economy, locally and globally.

I engage in the six economic fields (and basic holistic skills) to help to support many good things simultaneously: love, peace, joy, morals, awareness, safety, health, economy (people having enough stuff), social and economic justice, nature, habitats, sustainable education, community culture, freedom to do good, and freedom from harm.  Furthermore, I engage in the six economic fields (and basic holistic skills) to help to diminish many local and global chronic-problems: poverty, greed, boredom, loneliness, depression, violence, wilderness loss, pollution, climate change, war, illness, cultural madness, daily grind, bad education, poor economies, people’s disconnection from nature, destroyed communities, etc.

THE ECONOMY DEFINED ...

The economy is people having stuff, how people get their stuff, and how people take care of nature as they get materials from nature and make their stuff.

1. The economy consists of the things and stuff in our life.  Stuff is shelter, water, food, warmth, energy, soap, clothes, tools, and art.  Stuff is supplies that we can likely buy with money at a shopping center.  Things is stuff and priceless things, that are more valuable than stuff.  Priceless things include family, friends, communities, and natural habitats.  Priceless things most likely cannot be bought with money at a shopping center.  Priceless things are more valuable than any amount of money. To survive is to have enough stuff (shelter, water, food, etc.) to live.  To thrive is to have enough stuff plus priceless things, that no amount of money can buy. To have a lot more stuff than is needed and to have bigger stuff, faster stuff, and higher-tech stuff is still only surviving, not thriving. Thriving includes having priceless things, especially all 7 priceless things - see 8 Valuable Things in Holistic Sustainability.

2. The economy is not money alone, but the economy includes using money to buy stuff.  With money alone, we cannot live, because what we really need is stuff.  The point of the economy is to get stuff, not money.  The base of our economy is nature, because our stuff comes from nature.  The water we drink comes from nature.  The food we eat grows in soil that comes from nature.  Many of our houses are built with wood that comes from trees in nature, or the trees are grown on tree farms which have soil from nature.  Even computers are made with rare earth elements, which come from nature.  Nature is the base of our economy.  We gather and make our stuff from nature.  Without nature, we could not make stuff, that then we could buy with money.  The point of our economy is to get stuff, not money.  The base of our economy is nature, not money.  Also, our economy includes having priceless things that no amount of money can buy.   If all we had was money, but no stuff and no priceless things and no nature, we would not have an economy.  Hunter-gatherers have an economy, because although they have no money, they still have enough stuff, priceless things, and nature.

3. The root wood for economy and ecology comes from the Greek language.  "Eco" means home, in the Greek language.   Our home is nature.  Ecology is learning about our home of nature.  Economy is taking care of our home of nature.  Ecology and economy are utterly linked together.  Ecology is science - learning about nature.  Economy is art - taking care of nature, making and managing our home of nature so that people gather and make their stuff from nature in ways that help people and nature thrive together.

4. In summary, the economy is the actions we take to help us to live, survive, and thrive.  The economy is getting and having stuff and priceless things, and having nature from which we get our stuff.  To survive is to have enough stuff.  To thrive is to not only have enough stuff (water, food, clothes, etc), but to also have priceless things (family, friends, communities, and natural habitats) that are more valuable than stuff.

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Some days, I engage in the economic fields, at regular specific times, in the order listed below. I try to do each education subject at least a few days a week, if not every day.

Daily Community Economic Best Practices
(Live, Learn, Work to help communities)

9:00 AM, Morals-Love-Awareness-Health
and Quality Calendar
The economy is the actions we take to help us to live, survive, and thrive. 
To improve our living, surviving, and thriving, and to gain sustainable community economic skills, people need to be moral, ethical, loving, aware, and care about communities, people, and nature.  Love (community-love, brotherly-love, compassion) and awareness is the greatest economic skill.   It is by being aware, loving, and taking care of communities, people, and nature, that our economy grows.
● Morals includes love, as in moral love, spiritual love, community love, brotherly love, world love, a love for the goodness in all mankind, and helping mankind. Morals and love include awareness. Increasingly become more aware of good possibilities and opportunities for communities, people, and nature. To be moral is to love and be aware.  Morals, love, and awareness boost people's health. Furthermore, morals, love, and awareness sustain and enrich the health of communities, people, and nature.  Morals-love-awareness-health is the most important action, motive, outlook, and first step in being sustainable.
● Mindfulness, Meditation, Prayer.   Be aware of and promote good qualities, safety, health, supply, wisdom, love, peace, joy, and harmony, in the community    Be aware of, avoid, and diminish harm, danger, limits, lies, evil, greed, disease, and discord, in the community.
The Quality Calendar supports good qualities in communities, people, and nature.

10:00 AM, Nature Science
To improve our living, surviving, and thriving, and to gain sustainable community economic skills, people should think and learn. Sustainable economic skills include knowing about nature, the base of our economy.
Do science and observation.  Gain, knowledge, knowledge, experience, wisdom, and learning.  Be intelligent.  Learn about local nature.  Learn about local geography, plants, animals, ecology, phenology, tracking, and awareness. The more we know about nature, the more we can help to sustain and enrich nature, which is the base of our economy.
(See the Holistic Sustainability, 40 ways, including economics, to sustain communities, people, and nature.)
(See the Changes Needed in Education and Economy: 7 Goals and Success Indicators of culture, education, ecology, and economy, in order to help communities, people, and nature.) 

**12 Noon - Lunch**

1:00 PM, Nature Art
To improve our living, surviving, and thriving, and to gain sustainable community economic skills, people should have skills to make art, supplies, and stuff.
Gain skills to make stuff from scratch from local nature.  Gain skills to make stuff: supplies, shelters, water filters, fire, clothes, soap, tools, and other arts and crafts. A good economy is a sustainable economy that includes people taking stuff from nature in ways that helps to sustain and enrich nature.  A poor economy is a destructive economy that includes people mostly extracting from nature and clearing habitats.
To improve our living, surviving, and thriving, and to gain sustainable community economic skills, community members should know how to work together as a self-sufficient local community (run a local community economy) to grow, make, distribute, and exchange local food and local goods amongst each other so that everyone in the local community has enough food and stuff, supplies, goods, etc.
If people can walk for themselves and talk for themselves, then people can better interact with the world.  Likewise, if communities can run their own self-sufficient local economies for themselves, they can better interact with the world.
(See the Holistic Sustainability, 40 ways, including art in economics, to sustain communities, people, and nature.)
(See the Changes Needed in Education and Economy: 7 Goals and Success Indicators of culture, education, ecology, and economy (including art in culture, education, and economics), in order to help communities, people, and nature.) 

3:00 PM, Permaculture Food
To improve our living, surviving, and thriving, and to gain sustainable community economic skills, people should know how to grow a variety of organic, non-GMO, fresh, local nutritious food, as well as have skills to forage for wild edible plants. A good economy includes many people having enough nutritious good to eat.  A poor economy includes many people being in poverty and not eating enough nutritious food.  A good economy includes people growing food in ways that sustains and enriches soil fertility and biodiversity.  A poor economy includes people growing food in ways that make soils infertile and supports crop monocultures.
To improve our living, surviving, and thriving, and to gain sustainable community economic skills, community members should know how to work together as a self-sufficient local community (run a local community economy) to grow, make, distribute, and exchange local food and local goods amongst each other so that everyone in the local community has enough food and stuff, supplies, goods, etc.
If people can walk for themselves and talk for themselves, then people can better interact with the world.  Likewise, if communities can run their own self-sufficient local economies for themselves, they can better interact with the world.

4:00 PM, Landcare. Stewardship of habitats, wildlife, land, water, air, and soil.
To improve our living, surviving, and thriving, and to gain sustainable community economic skills, people should know how to take care of nature, the base of our economy. People need to take from nature, but they can learn to take from nature that helps nature to grow instead of increasingly dwindle and diminish. Nature, clean air, clean water, fertile soil and other natural resources are the base of our economy and a high-quality of life. A high-quality life includes breathing clean air, drinking clean water, growing food in fertile soil, playing outdoors, and living near and or within a healthy natural environment. Sustaining and enriching nature, sustains and enriches our economy. Expanding wilderness habitats helps to grow our economy.
(See the Holistic Sustainability, 40 ways, including the economics of landcare, to sustain communities, people, and nature.)
(See the Changes Needed in Education and Economy: 7 Goals and Success Indicators of culture, education, ecology, and economy, in order to help communities, people, and nature.) 

**5:00 PM - Dinner**

6:00 PM, Moral Health, Awareness
(See above)

7:00 PM, Celebration of Community Culture.
(e.g. Storytelling, Show-n-Tell, Blogging, Festivity and Holidays, Games, etc.)
To improve our living, surviving, and thriving, and to gain sustainable community economic skills, people should do cultural activities and socialize in ways that help communities, people, and nature.  Intelligent socializing is to support community culture.  To gain sustainable community economic skills, people should live a culture that helps people and nature, in their local community and beyond.  People should be living in a functional community and supporting a community economy, or helping to establish a functional community and community economy.  A functional community is a local group of skilled people working together (community cooperation) to be locally-self-sufficient. A local group of people living, learning, working, doing science, and doing art to sustain and enrich the local community landscape of people and nature, and running a community economy.  If people can walk for themselves and talk for themselves, then people can better interact with the world.  Likewise, if communities can run their own self-sufficient local economies for themselves, they can better interact with the world.  To beneficially engage in the economy and socialize in a good and wise way, people have to help communities, people, and nature to thrive together.  To beneficially engage in the economy and socialize in a good and wise way, people have to live a community culture, live a way of life of living, learning, and working that helps communities, people, and nature.  A good culture for a good (sustainable) economy is a holistic community culture, that has a sustainable community culture-education-economy, in which the culture educates its children to run a sustainable economy, in which people and nature thrive together.
(See the Holistic Sustainability, 40 ways, including economics in culture, to sustain communities, people, and nature.)
(See the Changes Needed in Education and Economy: 7 Goals and Success Indicators of culture, education, ecology, and economy, in order to help communities, people, and nature.) 

● On Daily Basis and during Holistic Days, I do holistic skills to support:
communities, people, and nature.
People do best while communities and nature are doing well. A community is a local group of people working together (community cooperation) to be locally-self-sufficient (local community economy). A community is a local group of people living, learning, working, doing science, and doing art to sustain and enrich the local community landscape of people and nature, and running a community economy. People, who can walk and talk for themselves, are better at interacting with the world. Likewise, communities, which run their own locally-self-sufficient community economies for themselves, are better at interacting with the world.   

I do holistic skills to overcome harm to communities, people, and nature. Capitalism (and other things) harms communities, people, and nature. Capitalism does many harmful things including that it destroys people's and communities' wisdoms, skills, cooperation, and abilities to be locally-self-sufficient, and capitalism coerces people and communities into being helplessly dependent on distant products and resources and continuing an economy that destroys nature. Globalized capitalism is the spread of coercion and helpless dependencies, and not global cooperation. I do holistic skills to help to replace capitalism (and national communism) with economies that bring more justice, equality, and capability to communities, people, and nature.

Capitalism is the globalized “free”-market (a.k.a. commodity economy) that is “free” to destroy the world of communities, people, and nature.  Capitalism is the largest global human-made-disaster ever. Capitalism is the one disaster that entails many interconnected bad side-effects worldwide: poverty, greed, boredom, loneliness, depression, violence, wilderness loss, pollution, climate change, war, illness, cultural madness, daily grind, bad education, poor economies, people’s disconnection from nature, destroyed communities, etc.  Capitalism is a bad culture.  Capitalism is a bad culture-education-economy.  Capitalism and its culture-education-economy teach people (kids and adults) to be distracted by obsessions of academics, test scores, career specialization, sports, high-tech gizmos, and shopping for globalized products.  While people are distracted, capitalism enters communities throughout the world, and takes control of communities, people, and nature, while globalized large corporations become richer.  Capitalism is a few globalized large corporations growing bigger and richer, while communities, people, and nature become poorer.  Martin Luther King Jr. was against capitalism. He said, "Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience, and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level. That's the way the system works. And since we know that the system will not change the rules, we are going to have to change the system.” In every community, establish a self-sufficient community culture-education-economy, in which the community, people (most if not all), and nature flourishes, instead of globalized large corporations and the very few people who run them. 

To end capitalism (to stop it from doing more harm) and to overcome capitalism's inflicted harm so far to communities, people, and nature, it's not enough to do ecological stewardship alone, and it's not enough to grow permaculture food alone.  To end capitalism and overcome capitalism's inflicted harm, we've got to change holistically: change just about everything, including the modern culture-education-economy.   To end capitalism and overcome capitalism's inflicted harm, we've got to replace the one globalized capitalism culture-education-economy with many community culture-education-economies.  The community culture-education-economy gives people (kids and adults) a holistic community education to take care of the land, run permaculture family farms, and run sustainable local community economies that help people and nature to thrive together.  The community culture-education-economy gives people (kids and adults) an education about what matters most: protecting nature (the air we breathe, the water we drink, the soil we grow our food in, wildlife, habitats, biodiversity, etc.), people’s health (which depends largely on how healthy nature is), sustainable wisdom, family farms, local small businesses, and the community economy.  People need to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and eat nutritious food.  Reading, writing, and math are less important than air, water, and food; but, reading, writing, and math can be learned along with food skills, landcare skills, and community economy skills.   A community culture-education-economy helps students to stay aware of their community (and beyond) and helps students to help their community, instead of getting too distracted by capitalism, greed, academics, test scores, job specialization, sports, high-tech gizmos, celebrities, and shopping for globalized products.  Holistic community education helps to actively heal and prevent capitalism's harm to communities, people, and nature.  Holistic community education encourages students to be moral and responsible by taking care of communities, people, and nature, instead of neglecting them while focusing on academics, sports, and high-technology.  Basic holistic skills and holistic community education help to support many good things simultaneously: love, peace, joy, morals, awareness, safety, health, economy (people having enough stuff), social and economic justice, nature, habitats, sustainable education, community culture, freedom to do good, and freedom from harm.  Furthermore, basic holistic skills and holistic community education help to diminish the modern bad culture and its numerous global interconnected bad side-effects: poverty, greed, boredom, loneliness, depression, violence, wilderness loss, pollution, climate change, war, illness, cultural madness, daily grind, bad education, poor economies, people’s disconnection from nature, destroyed communities, etc.

Also see The Changes Needed in Education and the Economy: 7 Goals and Success Indicators of culture, education, ecology, and economy.

Also see CEEE: culture-education-ecology-economy

Read about Holistic homepage,
Holistic Health, Holistic Community Culture,
Holistic Landcare, Holistic Science and Art,
Holistic Education, and Holistic Skills,
Holistic Sustainability,
and Holistic Days.

 

 

Economic History Lesson

economy - 4 types:

1st economy: hunter-gatherer economy
no money used, no trading out of necessity
This economy has existed for over 100,000 years.
A hunter-gatherer society is a wilderness-society of tribal camps. Typically, a tribal camp has 2 to 150 people.
In general, people were generalists and each family hunted, gathered, and handmade all of their own stuff. They had enough stuff (water, food, clothes, shelter, soap, basic tools, etc.) and they did not need to get stuff from other people. Handmaking every necessity took a lot of time, but, commonly, people handmade all their stuff fast-enough and well-enough to meet their needs. Typically, hunter-gatherers met their weekly needs by working 30 hours per week. Plus, often, there was community cooperation and community sharing: people shared stuff with everyone within the tribal camp community. On rare occasions, there was casual trading of items between people for the fun of it.
Click on Nice5, Holistic, CEEE to read examples of hunter-gatherer tribes that were nice to people, sustained nature, and got enough stuff.
Numerous sources report a hunter-gatherer lifestyle of meeting human needs. Hadza: Hunter-Gatherers of Tanzania, by Frank Marlowe, 2010. History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, by Jason Moore and Raj Patel, 2017. The Tracker, by Tom Brown Jr., 1978. My Indian Boyhood, by Luther Standing Bear, 1931. Jared Diamond's thesis, in the 1980s. And many more books.

2nd economy: bartering economy
no money used, early trading, in early farming villages and in early civilizations
This economy has existed for perhaps 10,000 years.
A farming village may have 50 to 1,000 people. A civilization is a city-society. Each civilization has one or more cities. Usually, a city has over a 1,000 people.
In farms and cities, people are more specialized and make only a few types of stuff. Thus, people needed to trade some of their stuff to get other stuff that they needed. For instance, one person traded his cow to get a few blankets from another person. Later, as money came into existence, people could barter for how much money a commodity was worth.

3rd economy: money economy
simple money economy of ancient civilizations
This economy has existed for 3,000 years. Roughly, 3,000 years ago, metal coins were invented in Phoenicia. Roughly, 1,000 years ago, paper money was invented in China.
Money represented value and gave people more shopping flexibility. For instance, a person, who had a cow, could use money to buy a few blankets from a person, who did not necessarily want a cow.
In early money economies, simple money economies, it was kings, queens, emperors, and popes, who had the most money and biggest treasuries.

4th economy: capitalism and communism
complex money economies of today
This economy has existed for roughly 500 years. The Age of Capitalism and Industry started in 1460s, on the Island of Madeira, upon a bank of Genoa financing Europeans to set up the first modern industry outside of Europe. The Portuguese set up a sugarcane industry and plantation on the Island of Madeira. (See a book on the history of capitalism: The History of the World in 7 Cheap Things, by Jason Moore and Raj Patel, 2017.) Moreover, the same bank of Genoa financed Spain to send Christopher Columbus to sail and trade across the Atlantic Ocean, and to happen to discover the Americas. Spain was bankrupt from war; hence, the king and queen of Spain had to borrow money from the bank of Genoa to finance Columbus. In fact, this is what is different from capitalism and early money economies. In early money economies, the kings, queens, emperors, and popes had the most money and biggest treasuries. In capitalism, the largest banks, financial corporations, and other globalized corporations have the most money. Nations have to borrow money from banks. Some people think of capitalism as the current world government and call it a corporatocracy, in which a collective of globalized corporate monopolies rule the world. The national communism of 20th-century China and Soviet Union is an offshoot of capitalism. In capitalism, private businesses and financiers make more financial decisions within the nation. To the contrary, in communism, politicians make more financial decisions for the nation. Yet, capitalism and communism are similar in that they each have a few rich people and many poor people.
Martin Luther King Jr. saw capitalism's injustice and said, "Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience, and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level. That's the way the system works. And since we know that the system will not change the rules, we are going to have to change the system." We want economic change that lifts people out of poverty and not drags people down into poverty. Whatever economy we make next, we want it to be sustainable and for the wealth to go to communities and evenly throughout the people within each community, and not again for most of the wealth to go to only a few people, such as emperors, popes, kings, queens, and those in the upper rungs of ruthless centralized governments and large globalized corporations.

Also see the Changes Needed in Education and Economy: 7 Goals and Success Indicators of culture, education, ecology, and economy, in order to diminish poverty and social and economic injustice and inequality.

Also see CEEE: culture-education-ecology-economy

Read about Holistic homepage,
Holistic Health, Holistic Community Culture,
Holistic Landcare, Holistic Science and Art,
Holistic Education, and 6 Holistic Skills,
Holistic Design, Holistic Sustainability,
and Holistic Days.