Utopia Governance & the Commons by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

Chapter 9 also suggests there is an argument for people to continue to live ‘wild’ and be exempt from the normal processes of government, should they wish. The chapter also considers people from ‘developed’ nations who wish to live a more ‘organic’, off-grid lifestyle. Such people need to be given the means to allow them to adopt the kind of lifestyle they want, without having to be bound to a fixed address, a telephone or an internet connection.

In wealthy nations it seems ridiculous that there remain so many people who must just scrape by to provide themselves with even the basics of life. If part of the aim of good governance is for human flourishing, then this situation is surely wrong. We are human beings not just human doings. So arguably our societies should be about allowing people to find their full potential, whether this is through paid work or through learning or creativity or a combination of all of these. A large part of this is about giving people back their dignity. Chapters 8 and 11 considered arguments for a Universal Basic Income. Freed from the need to provide for basic survival, people are more at liberty to seek out a vocation in life. An alternative proposal discussed was ‘Universal Basic Services’, or ‘Direct Provision’, whereby the basics of life — food, shelter, clothing and public transport — are provided free by society, allowing people to live without money, should they wish. Rather like the ancient Charter of the Forest, Universal Basic Services seeks to provide people with all

 

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the resources they need to live a dignified life.

Chapters 8 and 12 also considered arguments for a shorter working week, partly because reduced hours would be a possibility as a result of a Universal Basic Income (or Universal Basic Services) and also to address issues around increasing mechanisation, robots and AI. These ideas are not a replacement for a welfare state. There is still a lot of care needed for people with specific health problems as well as for children and the elderly. But with UBI established and a good welfare service, we give people the opportunity to realise their full potential, to flourish and to live with dignity and self-respect.

The world seems set in its ways, and changes, if any should happen at all, need must be tiny and incremental. Indeed, changes may be for the worse rather than for the better. I remind the reader of the current mess in British and American politics — neo-liberalism taken to extremes, ongoing preparations for war, little action on pollution, little action to avert the collapse of eco-systems and little action to mitigate climate change, or to prepare to adapt to its impact. Things cannot go on like this for too much longer. I think, therefore, that big changes are imminent. In fact, my concern in writing this book has been trying to finish it before events overtook me. If we do nothing, change will overtake us anyway. But there is plenty that we could be doing, and plenty of hope for the future. I think all of the ideas I have shared in this book and summarised in this chapter are ideas whose time has come. If some (or all) of the ideas seem far-fetched then I refer the reader to Alex Evans’ The Myth Gap,

 

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and in particular, his discussion of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for 2030. I also refer the reader to the UN Convention of Human Rights.

So, to the question, how should we live, our initial answer can be with dignity and with respect for each other and for the natural world. The more complete answer is the new story — the alternative utopia that seems to combine all that is good in Privatopia, Cornucopia and Ecotopia and offer us a new way of seeing the world. This is the subject of our next chapter.

 

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15. A New Story

‘Your system is very good for the people of Utopia; it is worthless for the children of Adam.’

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

‘It is easy to forget how mysterious and mighty stories are. They do their work in silence, invisibly. They work with all the internal materials of the mind and the self. Beware the stories you read and tell; subtly, at night, beneath the waters of consciousness, they are altering your world.’

Ben Okri

‘Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.’

Samuel Jackson

 

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‘Possibility is not a luxury, it is as crucial as bread.’

Judith Butler

‘… we dream in narrative, day-dream in narrative, remember, anticipate, hope, despair, believe, doubt, plan, revise, criticize, construct, gossip, learn, hate and love by narrative.’

Barbara Hardy — Getting the Facts

To give people information to allow them to make rational decisions might seem like a simple task. But, unfortunately, things are not so easy. We are very discriminating in the way we take in facts. We will tend to favour information that backs up our existing view of the world. (‘Confirmation bias’.) Meanwhile other information, which might not sit so happily with our world view, will just be blocked out completely. When we want to believe something, we ask; ‘Can I believe it?’ Any supporting evidence is likely then to justify the belief. When we don’t want to believe something, then we ask; ‘Do I have to believe it?’ Any contrary piece of evidence will then be enough to justify rejecting the belief. (From psychologist Tom Gilovich, as discussed by Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind.) In making our decisions, and arguing our corner, it is the heart and stomach that decide, rather than the brain. As philosopher David Hume said: ‘And as reasoning is not the source, whence neither disputant derives his tenets; it is vain to expect that any logic, that speaks not to the affections, will ever engage him to embrace

 

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sounder principles.’ (David Hume — An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.)

To make matters worse, each of us holds usually a set of contradictory opinions and even different sets of contradictory opinions for different occasions. We prize the notion of ‘authenticity’, which suggests that there is a core to our being that constitutes a genuine self, but knowing this authentic self is a difficult matter, even if we could be sure that the authentic self exists. Getting the facts straight, and trying to equip people to discern facts, is challenging, to say the least.

Added to all this we generally just run on auto-pilot, and we ‘re-act’ rather than ‘act’ when circumstances demand. All this has just happened to us — it wasn’t a conscious choice to be like this. The culture that surrounds us as we grow up is a factor in how we arrived in this state of affairs. We absorb many of the thoughts and opinions that surround us, and then count them as our own. To go against cultural norms is a difficult and potentially dangerous thing. But living within cultural norms can be stifling and suffocating.

So I am urging a close scrutiny of culture — news, advertising, the pronouncements of politicians and religious leaders. Are they just repeating narratives that have lost their power and relevance? Or are they coming from a place of genuine compassion? Do they want people to be free to make their own life decisions and govern their own lives? Are they seeking to move us toward a new narrative? If yes, what are the motives for doing this? The number one

 

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question of this chapter is — can we change the story?

 

From Facts to Story

Despite the difficulties considered above, we still need to deliver some facts. The commons, governance, and even visions of utopia, have to be based on reality. Facts about the world — stating the problems we face with climate change, resource depletion, loss of bio-diversity — need to be set in place. Beyond facts though, there are stories. Truth is not necessarily something set in stone. Truth is a journey. So stories are a way of embodying truth as it emerges and changes over time.

If anything, the problem we face is not a lack of story — it’s that we’re addicted to story. What I’ve tried to bring out in this book is that we are already surrounded by competing stories, competing utopias, of how life might be lived. We are swayed back and forth by competing stories and we are also swayed by how stories are presented to us and who presents them. Whose story will be heard?

Who gets heard in our society is a bit of a complex issue. It is mostly the confident, assertive and generally extrovert person who will be heard. Also the person heard, and who will be promoted or achieve other success in life, will likely be taller, white, male and ‘well presented’. Looks, charm and charisma form a natural pecking order before any concerns of ability or common sense. And then of course there is celebrity. Someone who has celebrity status seems to acquire the right to speak on

 

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almost any subject and to get an audience.

How then do we go about setting a new story in place? Should we change the external circumstances so as to bring about a change in the lives of people? This is what many current governments try to achieve. They may seek to improve people’s circumstances, jobs, security, housing, transport, etc. to get happy citizens. Happy citizens make better choices and act more responsibly. This is the current story of governance we are often offered, although we may question, of course, if this is not just a facade for what is really going on. Is it enough? Theodore Zeldin reminds us: ‘A myth appears solid only until it is found to be absurd, soluble in water and laughter. Once it is dissolved, the facts it used to hold together are released; what once passed for truth falls apart, and it can be reconstituted afresh.’ (Theodore Zeldin — Happiness.)

A new story is not something just invented. It is not a fantasy. It is a way to put together the facts so that they form a narrative that explains the world and gives us some guidance about how to live. Alisdair MacIntyre (After Virtue) tells us: ‘I can only answer the question “What am I to do?” if I can answer the question “Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?”’ How we respond to stories is also a strange process, as we saw with how we respond to facts, above. It is usually for personal reasons that people will choose to adopt a new story. Any new story then, needs to make a personal appeal.

We also, each of us, weave a story of our own lives. Which story will allow us to maintain a

 

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sense of our own worth, offer us genuine pleasure, deal fairly with everyone and not trash the planet? And how can we link that to our own personal stories? That’s the quest in a nutshell.

From all of the above, I think that an appeal to our sense of our authentic selves and our hearts’ desires, needs to be part of any new story. At some point in our lives — perhaps at many points — we realise that who we are in our authentic selves is at odds with the culture that surrounds us. (Notwithstanding what was said above, I think we have to go with the notion that we believe in and want to benefit our authentic selves.) Then we can ask, how do we find the courage to live authentically rather than follow the herd? Our authentic selves look for a story of the world in which we are the heroine or hero. The key to a new story is to adopt a new way of living such that we are still the heroine and hero and not the sad victim. Stories need to inspire — to give us hope. Most important for a new story, I think, is for us to re-align where our pleasure is found. The heroine or hero is on a quest for pleasure — pleasure that makes life satisfying and worthwhile. This is the narrative that needs to be offered and the story needs to be broad enough for people to realise it in different ways.

So how do we solve this problem — presenting people with facts, and a strong argument that may be contrary to their current opinion? Presenting people with an alternative story that may be miles away from how they currently see the world? Far from changing their minds, it is likely to result in them being even more

 

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entrenched in their opinions. Perhaps there are many routes, given the variety of media at our disposal today. But I want to emphasise one key method here, and that is meeting people face-to-face, in small groups. We have seen this can influence people because we all fear being shamed. But it also has a more positive effect. Small groups can share stories, especially people’s own personal stories. This may have nothing to do with the issues that are contentious between them or about any ‘big questions’ of politics or the economy. But sometimes the sharing of personal stories can allow people to let go of their defences. The ‘solution’ to disagreements then, is often not a direct weighing up between contrary opinions. Remember the quote from Chapter 11 — ‘Out beyond the ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing, there is a field. I will meet you there.’ Good governance is not about contesting the right-ness or wrong-ness — it’s about providing that field. Theodore Zeldin, quoted above, describes meeting a Muslim imam. The imam blasts Zeldin with his views on the decadence of Western culture. Zeldin remains silent. After a long rant, the imam hugs Zeldin warmly. Zeldin asks the imam why he has acted this way. The imam simply says, ‘because you listened’.

Every life is a story, and every relationship, friendship and family is a shared story. Listening is the first step in building a story with another person. The story has the potential to transcend the need to be ‘right’. This might seem a few stages removed from just trying to change people’s opinions and get them to vote on a particular policy as we do in contemporary politics. But I suggest hearing people’s stories

 

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is a much better way. Personal narratives, and the sharing of personal narratives are ways to build relationship and community. It is only from this that real changes — ongoing changes, relating to our changing world — can come about.

 

The Voice of Dissent

There is some hope already. Experiments have shown that just one dissenting voice allows others to question current knowledge, and perhaps adopt an alternative view. A new story is possible. We saw the critical importance dissent holds in the governance system known as Sociocracy. The message here is that it’s good to question and it’s okay to make mistakes. On this basis, I am happy for people to disagree with everything that follows! But, in the spirit of Sociocracy, I ask that any dissenters have good reasons for proposing their own story or for objecting to mine.

 

Daydreaming

Now I must celebrate the virtues of daydreaming and staring vacantly into space! Perhaps you were the child told off in school for gazing out of the window when you should have been listening to teacher. One way or another, the world sends the message that daydreamers are lazy, dysfunctional or otherwise horribly damaged. I want to offer the opposite message. The daydreamer may eventually turn to work and achieve much more than those ‘regular’ people who seem more focused. The regular person is probably going to adopt a mindset that

 

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becomes an increasingly stifling routine. The daydreamer is either dreaming or working away at some project that engages them (sometimes despite, rather than because of school). I leave it to the reader to decide which pupil will grow up to be the more interesting and entertaining. We need more dreamers in the world, so that new stories can take hold. Otherwise we are stuck with the narrative of those ‘regular’ people that no-one seeks to question, because no-one is around to consider that the world could be a very different place.

 

Education Without Character

As we mentioned in Chapter 13, a style of education that encourages young people to question is something of a two-edged sword. Has it led to a distrust of experts? Or has it led to a healthy scepticism? Perhaps both. Questioning though, as I’ve suggested above, is a first step to being able to change to a new story. Education — whether deliberately, or by default — is instilling stories of what society is about. It could be said that education is currently only preparing young people for the jobs market, with this, in turn, allowing them to earn a living in future, and that this is sufficient. It could be said that education is falling behind even in this role, as a world that is rapidly changing needs new types of jobs for the future. But there is something very dubious about education based only on ‘progress’ and results. It just apes the mindset of society that has already got us into such a mess. Children are born undivided from their wild natures. We force them into classrooms, then offices and factories, and along the way cast doubts on the

 

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value of daydreaming and imagining. We are separated from our wild selves, our making, and our shared life with the rest of the planet.

What about a story of an interconnected world? A wild nature that deserves our responsible care? A wild nature within each one of us that means we all have intrinsic worth? Community? Beauty, pleasure, silence, slowness and peace? Grace, kindness, conversation, humour? Art, celebration, carnival? Meanwhile Plato reminded us that the most effective education is that a child should play amongst beautiful things. There are teachers out there who instil such values into their students. But often they are the ones who are swimming against the tide. Our current story of Privatopia is looking for obedient drones.

Tom Hodgkinson observes:

‘One thing that depresses me greatly is the argument I hear trotted out with tedious regularity by other parents, usually said about boys. “He’d better toughen up, because it’s a tough world out there. It’s a competitive place…”. Why not say, “It’s a wonderful world out there, so let’s make him wonderful!” The solution to the world being full of arseholes is not to add to the problem by making your own son into an arsehole. Set a good example!’

Tom Hodgkinson — How to be Free.

 

Name your Pleasures

The suggestion throughout this book is that it is the social relations of pleasure that form the basis of any changes in society. The new story

 

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is primarily a story of pleasure. In Chapter 12, on Pleasure, we looked at what this might be about. I suggested there that genuine pleasure is about taking a broader view of life, trying to see what may be for our long-term contentment and fulfilment, rather than just catching some fleeting fun or entertainments where we can. Also, each of us being unique, it is a good thing to accept our strangeness and difference — to celebrate our radical otherness. And I added that pleasure is often about connection with others, with nature and with the wider cosmos. So, a new story should not be a blueprint for how everyone should live. It could instead be about each of us finding our own pleasures, which will lead to our eudaimonia — our flourishing. The task of the rest of society is to facilitate this process. Getting to know another person, or getting to know ourselves better, unmasks this beautiful parallel world that we all inhabit. All relationships are shared dreams and shared stories. So let’s go where the love is. And the starting point of love is surely to be accepted, just for who we are. We saw a deep connection between compassion and pleasure in earlier chapters. Pleasure that is about connection with others has a quality to it that transcends the material comforts that the consumer capitalist world seems to promote.

Let’s talk then about pleasures. Theodore Zeldin (The Secret Pleasures of Life, An Intimate History of Humanity, Conversation, Happiness) has focused very much on personal encounter as the key to human flourishing and happiness. Zeldin looks at a profusion of historic examples of how humans have organised both public and private life. His conclusion seems to be that a

 

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deeper exploration of private life, through intelligent conversation with others, is the key to a better public life. He seems to feel that we have a lot still to explore — largely because, for various reasons, we have found it difficult to express our feelings or it has been dangerous to do so because of the surrounding culture. Zeldin does not seem to have any particular notion about where a deeper conversation may lead us. He just emphasises the need for adventure and imagination. We might conclude that we are often stuck in our lifestyles because we find it difficult to speak to others about what might really make us happy. So good conversation may be a way to set us free and give us the confidence to try new things.

A new story is asking us: What are our real sources of pleasure? Naming our pleasures is a way of allowing others to name theirs. I hope that the reader at this point will drift off into a reverie about what would make life wonderful! I’d suggest we may be surprised at just how many people share a similar desire to break free and follow their dreams. It is only convention — the established stories about how the world should be — that keep us from our hearts’ desires. John Stuart Mill (On Liberty) said:

‘Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded, and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigour, and moral courage which it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of our time.’

 

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Name your Fears

In Chapter 6, on small-scale community, we looked at M. Scott Peck’s idea of a ‘broken’ community and understood this to refer to an openness and vulnerability to others. That vulnerability is in large part about naming our fears. Fear is not necessarily bad — it can be a message to us that things need to change. Instead of trying to communicate our strength and self-sufficiency, naming our fears may serve us better in realising a new story. The fear within our culture of Privatopia might be that we are missing out. Why be the person who does without a car, a mobile phone, foreign holidays, a bigger house, a higher salary? Won’t this just mean that other people — openly, or behind our backs — will consider us as weird, or sad losers, or both? (If someone says, ‘I really admire your principles’ then that’s a definite sign they think you’re weird.) But really, deep down, others may share our concerns for the future. If we speak simply and sensibly about our fears, then it will allow others to be more open about theirs.

 

The Current Story

Most of us in Western culture are caught in the pervading story of capitalism and what I have described as Privatopia. We unconsciously adopt the story of Privatopia and some of its assumed aims of rising consumption, economic growth, improving technology and the dominance of money. Most of us are obliged to work for money and so, as John Holloway has pointed out, participate in the reproduction of consumer capitalism. There is something skewed about us

 

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as Privatopians. (I am having to include myself here — we are all in this, even whilst some of us are trying to escape.) The defeniveness of our lifestyle is increasingly vicious. The contempt for authority. The sense that one’s own opinions count far more than any expert, but also a deep resentment if those opinions are ever questioned. The sense of entitlement. The outrage that is felt when anything might impinge on our lifestyle or happiness. The narcissism, and inflated sense of self-worth (since, after all, there is no-one else that matters in Privatopia) is starting to be the mindset of a whole culture.

It’s tempting to say, so what? That, after all, would be Privatopia’s response to itself. But there are victims of our Privatopian lifestyle — the nations suffering poverty because of our excess; suffering the effects of climate change because of our neglect. The future generations who will be paying heavily for the mess we have left them. The poor and struggling within the richer nations. Privatopia may seem like just the norm for those of us in these rich nations, but it is jam for the few and crumbs for the many. Privatopia’s belief in growth and improvement means that it is poised to move inexorably towards a Cornucopia, but the concern raised by this book is that both the current Privatopia and the future Cornucopia are deeply problematic.

We also adopt some of the mindset that sits alongside these aims — the power-over, power-under dynamic. Erich Fromm, in The Fear of Freedom, describes some of the characteristics of this mindset that might best be described

 

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here as authoritarianism. There is an admiration for power, but also a deep hatred and envy of the powerful. At the same time there is a desire to defer responsibility to the powerful — to allow them to control us so that we can avoid thinking and deciding for ourselves. So we are ambivalent in terms of our power-under relations. Likewise we can have a contempt for those perceived as weak and will seek to dominate them, despite our hatred of authority and our wish to be controlled ourselves. So we are ambivalent in our power-over relations as well. Fromm explains how relationships (such as employer/employee and between spouses and partners) can vacillate between these different responses. Matthew Fox (Original Blessing) adds an obsession with death to the list of strange characteristics that Western culture has adopted. We can see from this how the power-under/power-over dynamic blends so well with consumer capitalism. There is a powerful elite of the super-wealthy, whom we admire and hate in equal measure. Money itself has a position of absolute power. Many people — whilst complaining about the need to work for a living — nonetheless welcome the routine of regular work. It means we do not have to think about how we would really wish to live because, we tell ourselves, we have to earn a living. There seems to be no choice — and part of us welcomes the lack of options. As such, we tend to protect our self-interest and no other strategy makes sense in such a world. This, I suggest, is our current story.

Much of this is entirely subconscious. The average person would probably not perceive themselves as displaying the characteristics I’ve

 

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described above. So embedded are the thought patterns, and the ‘appropriate’ emotions that accompany them, that there is seldom an opportunity to spot an unusual thought or response, let alone really spend time to consider where it has come from. The many distractions of the modern world keep us locked into our cognitive dissonance — holding these conflicting values of capitalism and power relations on the one hand, and a belief in autonomy, freedom and community on the other. Fromm offers some hope by way of really knowing other people. In good relationships — whether with friends or family — deeper conversation can bring to the surface the many contradictions under which we all labour, as we have considered above with Theodore Zeldin. Communities are a means by which deeper conversations can be facilitated. The fact that we can at least see there is cognitive dissonance — conflicting stories in our lives — is maybe even a positive sign.

From what we have explored above, we might observe that changing the story is not going to be an option, unless there is some way out of the damaging power relations that afflict most of us one way or another. The power relations, in turn, cannot be healed (turned around to power-with, as Starhawk might say) unless we wake up to the inherent contradictions in our lives. In this book, sitting alongside changes to governance, we have identified the need for personal change, and noted this is often achieved through good community. Henry George (referring to socialism) summed this up well:

 

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‘The ideal of socialism is grand and noble; and it is, I am convinced, possible of realization; but such a state of society cannot be manufactured — it must grow. Society is an organism, not a machine. It can live only by the individual life of its parts, and in the free and natural development of all the parts will be secured the harmony of the whole.’

Without this belief that people individually can improve and that humanity collectively can improve, we will struggle to see any real change, no matter what systems we may try to put in place. In a similar vein, enforcing moral behaviour (through system change) does not make people better in themselves (as John Locke argued, in relation to enforcing religious belief, and Ronald Dworkin argued, more generally, for all kinds of enforcement towards a ‘better’ life). Rather, it should be the free choice of citizens to take up better values and better behaviour.

 

A Story of Isolation or a Story of

Trust?

Charles Eisenstein (The Beautiful World that our Hearts Know is Possible) suggests that we carry with us a story of living a separate, atomised life in an indifferent world — what I have identified as Privatopia in this book. This story is overtly or covertly affirmed by so many aspects of Western culture — it becomes the way in which we define the self and our relationships. So most of us have been raised with an acceptance of separation. The moneyed, commodified economy has had the effect of increasing the atomisation of our lives. We have become

 

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fiercely defensive of our property and our individuality without realising that this is a symptom of the isolation felt in the absence of true community. Maybe the reader feels conformable with the world the way it is with respect to the autonomy and individuality that seems to be on offer to us (and indeed the writer feels a certain comfort from it too). Maybe the talk elsewhere of being wild in mind, body and soul seems a bit of a disconcerting alternative. Wildness can go either way. If we want to re-connect people to their own inner wildness, we had better be sure that this wildness will lead to all the good stuff described above, rather than some Mad Max dystopia.

So, we can ask: Do people genuinely wish to work at things that engage their skills and imagination and enhance life for themselves and those around them? Or, are people just out for whatever they can get with the minimum amount of work? Privatopia often seems to reinforce this second view. We are alone in the universe, nothing special, and stuck on a planet that is about survival of the fittest. This is a story of isolation. It suggests no-one is really trustworthy. We are alone, trying to fend for ourselves, in a world that is motivated mainly by selfishness. If we were to believe that most people, left to their own devices, would act only in their own selfish interests, then it is unlikely that setting them within a community context (by way of the additional circles of government, in Parapolity) will solve this and turn them into altruistic and compassionate citizens. Setting up any form of governance system — Sociocracy, Parapolity, Parecon, even a better system of representative democracy — will not work if

 

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people are only out for themselves. If we were to believe that most people don’t get it — that they will not act with sufficient care and compassion to protect either their own local environment or the global environment — then a new story will not work. We could ask; even if individuals and families could be as fully informed as possible about the local and global consequences of all their choices (housing, energy, food supply, transport, etc.) then would we act responsibly? Would we respect the global commons that is the ultimate source of all our sustenance? If the answer to the questions above is no, then again, I would suggest, it is unlikely that a new story will work.

Largely because of the above concerns, the arguments against deliberative democracy are strong. They reinforce many of the concerns raised elsewhere in this work — people are biased to their own pre-conceived (or, socially-adopted) opinions, they practise group-think, strong characters tend to dominate, people are favoured (and hence, their opinions given more weight) because of their personal charm or good looks, rather than their intelligence and the strength of their argument.

John Stuart Mill thought that participating in politics might make people better, but actually, people need to be better for their participation to be genuinely effective. This is a tough message to have to deliver. We have touched on the need for people to have a bit of wisdom, personal growth, flourishing and changed attitudes to pleasure throughout the book. But still, it is difficult to suggest that people need to change before things could improve. If there is

 

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no trust that others could be better then there is no hope. If however we have the capacity to trust others and to believe in others, then we have a hope of a new story.

As we have seen at several points throughout this book, there is a question here about human nature. What I’ve been suggesting above — and coming mostly from the chapters on compassion and pleasure — is that, whilst seeking our own different pleasures, we are, nonetheless, united in a quest for beauty, pleasure, silence, slowness, peace, grace, kindness, conversation, humour, art, celebration and carnival. We might also share a belief in everyone having a voice, in fairness, in freedom and also in responsibility. There is a lot of trust built into these values. A lot of belief needed for them to be realised. It takes faith to believe that most people, once we have their trust, will respond in a positive way. It takes faith to believe that most people genuinely have a gift they would like to bring to the world. It takes faith to believe that other people ‘get it’!

The way to prove our faith is to take action from within the new narrative. The story is changed through a million conversations and a million small acts of commoning, not by one or two defining acts of political change. So, for the new story to be a story of hope, it has to be premised on the need for us to grow a bit in wisdom as individuals and in the art of community and to make a decision to trust others and to have faith that others are trying — in their own ways — to make a better world.

How then can we commit to a story of trust?

 

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The tendency today is to wait for a feeling to ‘happen’ to us. So, if we don’t find ourselves trusting, we are not inclined to do anything about this, except perhaps acknowledge our untrusting feelings. But I suggest that some things are a decision rather than just waiting for the right feelings to emerge. We can decide to trust. And this decision may allow others to trust along with us and for the world generally to reciprocate our trust. As I’ve said above then, let’s take action from within the new narrative. Let’s behave as if the new narrative has already arrived.

 

The New Story

The world is a place of beauty and grace. Life is about feelings, hopes, pleasures and dreams. We need a new story that’s about an abundance of these things. These are the things that utopias aim for, and all our studies of commons and governance are committed to allowing these things to be there, for everyone. So, here we turn in earnest to that sixth question of the Introduction — How should we live?

Finally then, we can ask, what is the big, hairy, audacious goal of our new story? What would really motivate people to adopt it? By way of contrast to Privatopia, Cornucopia and Ecotopia, I am suggesting a ‘participatory utopia’. The new story is a process rather than a destination — it evolves as the conversation evolves. But here are some big points. The new story is about participation. Everyone is accepted, everyone has a voice, and everyone is heard. Everyone can flourish and society is arranged with opportunities for every kind of flourishing.

 

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Nature bounces back and climate change is finally addressed. This is the vision of the new story. Its mission is to realise these goals through co-operation, solidarity and conversation. The new story is known only as it is built, and it is no more or less than what we make our own lives together to be.

The new story is also about equity — and our exploration of the commons has, I hope, furnished us with some understanding of what would make for a fair and responsible distribution of the Earth’s resources — including equity for the plants and animals with whom we share the world.

The new story is about trust. To make our governance systems work, our distribution of resources more equitable, our treatment of nature more sustaining and, above all, for us to master the art of community, we need to learn to trust each other more, to forgive each other’s mistakes, and to recognise that good relationship is about more that just who is right or wrong.

So we have participation, equity and trust. The new story also identifies a strong need for political change, to go with the changes described above. The very first political question to be addressed is, what kind of governance system do we want? No-one has asked us this question, and we have grown up just accepting this situation, perhaps not even thinking it is a question that could be asked. It might be that people still want leaders, elected in the normal way — perhaps only asking for more honesty and accountability from our

 

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politics. The alternatives considered in this work are what I have described as radical devolution, giving power back to the grass roots. Deliberative democracy, by way of Citizens’ Assemblies and People’s Parliaments, could sit alongside, or fully replace, the current systems of party politics. One of the aims of the new story might be that eventually representative government in its current form will be superseded by representation of the sociocratic type and that affiliations to political parties will become less relevant, if not completely redundant. Likewise, as more businesses adopt sociocratic principles, the economy will be transformed from one premised on material wealth to one based on kindness, human flourishing and the abundance of nature.

The new story shares the concerns of Ecotopia about climate change and sustainability. Along with the facts about climate change, the new story recognises the need for a narrative that will inspire us to take action. We saw that the positive contribution of Cornucopia is the hope of abundance. We examined, especially in Chapter 9, the possibilities open to us, to re-wild and re-forest the Earth, and to change our agricultural practices, such that both nature and ourselves may flourish together. For a few years, at least, this is a possibility open to us, if we would only decide, or be allowed to decide, to adopt it. And this would seem to be a win-win-win situation. Winning for people, for planet and for the economy. The new story need not be about scarcity or sacrifice. Instead, it celebrates a different kind of materialism from today’s consumer capitalism. It values things for their beauty, durability, elegance, integrity

 

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and the value transferred to things by the care of their makers. The new story is a story about a material world that honours making and re-making, and a natural world that is more abundant rather than less, because of the activities of humans.

The new story is also about place. We need to reclaim our neighbourhoods, towns and cities and make them places of joy and celebration. We need safe, vibrant streets, friendly neighbours; places where nature can flourish; places where children are safe to play; places where we are happy to stay and just be ourselves. More than anything else, it is regulations that shape our environment — especially our built environment. Good regulations — ones that we have all been involved in formulating — will lead to places that we will grow to love — places of which we can all be proud. The new story would give us a direct say in what the places we live in will be like, give us places where we can make a living in any way we choose (provided we are not harming others or the environment) and feel that we are treated with dignity and respect by our fellow citizens. The commons of our built environment, like that of the natural world, needs to be managed by those most closely affected by any changes that are proposed. A managed commons is only achievable through the good organisation of community — through good governance. This emphasis on place taps into our human tendency to identify with groups — but it is an identity that we could describe as genuine patriotism — it is a welcoming and inclusive identity that celebrates everyone.

 

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The new story will recognise those elements of society that are currently ignored, under-valued or neglected. We have looked especially at our being separated from our making — our freedom to make. Also, underlying the material and cultural economies, is what has been described as re-making — the reproduction of ourselves, the care of others, and all the benefits and support of relationships, conversations, mutuality and solidarity. The names, ‘social commons’ and ‘emotional economy’ were assigned to this aspect of our lives. We have also called it ‘commoning’ — commoning is the praxis of the emotional economy. Others simply call it love. Someone has said that freedom is ‘freedom from’, that is, it is to be free of restraints on our behaviour, so far as that is appropriate. ‘Freedom to’, by contrast, is liberty. The making and re-making that we have explored in this book is therefore the ‘freedom to’ — it is the freedom, the liberty, above all else, to build our own narratives as individuals and societies.

In a sense then, the new story takes up the promise of abundance, from the Cornucopians; only an abundance of a different sort — different pleasures. The story of abundance allows us still to be heroes and heroines, without being compromised or embarrassed by the mismatch between our lifestyle and our characters. There is always a personal reason for the stories we choose to adopt. For instance, if someone adopts a disaster narrative for the future it might suggest that it is really more about their own inner turmoil rather than about what is happening in the world. By the same token, if we can change to have a more positive view of

 

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ourselves, then we are more likely to adopt a more positive view of the future. We have to raise people up as individuals first, before we can start to build better communities and better governance and so start to realise the new story. We have to trust this is possible.

A big part of this book has been to stress that all of the aims of our new story need to be achieved with others — through what I have described as the ‘art of community’. It is good to meet with people who affirm us and recognise our right to be free. This is precisely the starting point from which all notions of political arrangements and of commoning, springs. There can be shared pleasures that are both gracious and compassionate, satisfying the self whilst serving others.

It is tempting, at this point, to provide a checklist of things that could be done to further the ideas expressed in this book. But I’ve said that the new story will emerge through conversations and will evolve as the conversation evolves, so it would be disingenuous to be too prescriptive. The more general ideas, especially as given in Chapters 9 to 12, on nature, place, compassion and pleasure, I hope will serve as a framework for discussions.

To summarise the main points given above we can quote here from Thomas Berry, and what he described as ‘the Great Work’. The Great Work is to:

‘bring our collective material consumption into balance with the Earth to allow the healing and

 

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regeneration of the biosphere.’

This requires that we:

‘realign our economic priorities from making money for rich people to assuring that all persons have access to an adequate and meaningful means of making a living for themselves and for their families.

Because equity becomes an essential condition of a healthy, sustainable society in a full world, we must:

‘democratize human institutions, including our economic institutions, to root power in people and community and replace a dominant culture of greed, competition, materialism, and the love of money with cultures grounded in life-affirming values of cooperation, caring, spirit, and the love of life.

Because recognition of the essential spiritual unity of the whole of Creation is an essential foundation of the deep respect for the rights and needs of all living beings on which fulfilment of this agenda depends, it is necessary that we individually and collectively: ‘awaken to the integral relationship between the material and spiritual aspects of our being to become fully human.’

As quoted by David C. Korten in The Great Turning — From Empire to Earth Community.

 

The Demise of the Current Story?

Our societies need to convert more and more of the Earth’s natural commons in order to support the ever-expanding needs of Privatopia. Privatopia doesn’t really care how this is done, as long as the shops stay open and there is money in the bank to pay for the goods. This would not matter so much if there were just a few of us, or the world itself was limitless. But

 

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there will be 10 billion of us by 2050, and the world is certainly not limitless. Privatopia is a utopia of abundance, but it is premised on a lie. Cornucopia takes this forward into a high-tech future, but it may be a dystopia, where a small rich elite prosper, while everyone else picks up the crumbs. However, as we have seen, at least the Cornucopians offer us some hope of abundance. The Ecotopians can, by contrast, often just talk of catastrophe — all three flavours of utopia are really dystopias.

So will Privatopia — consumer capitalism, and neo-liberal economics — just keep going? Will the hopes of Cornucopia be realised? Or will the Ecotopians’ fears be realised instead? Perhaps every age believes itself to be at a turning point in history, but this time, it really may be true. Even the most optimistic forecasts for climate change are giving us only ten years to turn things around, and it is probably a shorter period. The years from 2020 to 2025 are perhaps the most critical of any in human history. Whilst we looked at the possibilities of space exploration in Chapter 13, this is not on a scale that can do very much towards helping the problems here in Earth. Maybe, in a century or two, things will be different, so far as space is concerned, but for now, it is Earth-bound solutions that are required.

There are answers; and most of them are well within our current technical capabilities. We have seen above and in earlier chapters that we still, for a few years at least, have the opportunity of a win-win-win solution. A world that will be better for nature, better for people and, at the same time, economically viable,

 

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giving us more prosperity rather than less.

 

Prospects for the New Story

So, what will convince us that we need a new story? Change is already in the air. It takes only a tipping point of opinion to open hearts and minds and allow new stories to become majority views. Some suggest that only 10% turning to a new idea is enough to tip society into adopting it wholesale. Meanwhile Erica Chenoweth (Why Civil Resistance Works) suggests that only a 3.5% swing is needed in order to overthrow tyrannical regimes. What may seem a radical viewpoint today might appear to be a self-evident truth tomorrow. A new story that brings us pleasure is what is likely to allow for positive contagion. At the moment, many of us sacrifice our time, and sometimes our sanity, to gain things that we are led to believe we should want, such as a bigger house, a better car or foreign holidays. But imagine if we became worshippers of beauty, pleasure, silence, slowness and peace. We might ‘sacrifice’ to achieve more of these things in our lives, but it’s a sacrifice to achieve even greater pleasure. We already hold views consistent with a new story. Most of us, if asked, would consider ourselves to be free. Many would profess to believe that having a vocation is more important than having a career; that friends and family are more valuable than making money; that community matters; that life is for living; that if we do not find pleasure in our lives then we are missing the point. All of this suggests to me that we are already well on our way. The new story is not a complete turn around of our views, it is instead

 

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just a stripping away of outmoded ideas, so that our hearts’ desires can be made real.

 

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16. Conclusion

‘To be truly radical today is to make hope possible, not despair convincing.’

Raymond Williams

‘I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it difficult to plan the day.’

E.B. White

‘So what is the point of Utopia? The point is this: To keep walking.’

Eduardo Galeano

 

‘If success or failure of this planet depended on how I am and what I do […] HOW WOULD I BE?

 

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WHAT WOULD I DO?’

R. Buckminster Fuller

Way back in the Introduction, I raised three concerns. Where is the vision for a better world? Why are people’s visions for a good life so premised on wealth and materialism? And, do I really trust people? Do I trust others enough to encourage deliberative democracy, where ordinary people have a say in how our society is run? As we reach the end of our discussions, it’s time to review where things stand with those concerns and questions raised at the start.

 

Where is the Vision?

I hope I’ve convinced the reader that there’s a lot of vision out there. We have studied the utopias that are alive and well in our society right now and named them with the three flavours, Privatopia, Cornucopia and Ecotopia. We could summarise the positive contributions of these utopias as follows: Privatopia — freedom, independence, autonomy. Cornucopia — positivity, hope, abundance. Ecotopia — recognising that we are all one eco-system with the Earth and the wider universe. Drawing on these positive narratives and collecting ideas from many sources, this book puts forward a new story. It’s a vision for a prosperous and happy future, but also, I believe, one that is pragmatic and most of all, based on the active participation of all of us. A utopia is built together, or otherwise it is a utopia for just a few and a dystopia for the rest. Participation is the key, and along with this we need a good

 

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deal of trust. And our consideration of the commons suggests that fairness — equity — is also critical. So the three big things that form the vision of a new story are participation, equity and trust.

 

The Good Life

Why do people envisage a good life as consisting of financial wealth and material possessions? We explored this question through the dominant culture described as Privatopia. Some economic theories suggest that we are pleasure-seeking machines. The sources of pleasure on offer though are of the acquisitive, material kind — the substitute pleasures of stuff. We need the stuff for our sense of who we are, because relationships have suffered and we have been driven towards seeking self-actualisation and self-esteem as ends in themselves. But this reliance on stuff as a prop for the ego is a fragile arrangement at best. It leaves people stressed and defensive, narcissistic and vulnerable. Instead of ego plus stuff, I have suggested the alternative pleasures of beauty, silence, slowness, peace, grace, kindness, conversation, humour, art, play, celebration and carnival. That’s the offer of our new story. I’ve suggested that many people secretly long for these ‘different pleasures’ and a few are forging ways to realise them, through changed lifestyles. So the contrast with the materialist ‘good life’ need not be austerity. It might be termed ‘frugality’ instead — living within our means — or it might be best called ‘simplicity’ — a term we took up in Chapter 12. There we saw that simplicity represents an abundance of a different sort — meeting genuine needs in elegant and beautiful

 

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ways.

 

Three Utopias

We set out on this journey by considering three types of utopia — Privatopia, Cornucopia and Ecotopia. Referring back to the three utopias, we observed that the current culture of consumer capitalism is best described as a Privatopia. In Privatopia the system is accepted, either grudgingly or enthusiastically, as inevitable. Everyone looks out for their own best interests and compassion does not extend very much beyond one’s own family. Whilst concerns over environmental destruction may be voiced, in Privatopia it is seen as something governments need to sort out. People pay lip service to this need, but if it is suggested that citizens may need to make changes or sacrifices in order to protect the environment then this is met with serious opposition.

Within Privatopia are the seeds of a future utopia called Cornucopia. Cornucopia more or less agrees that current lifestyles should not need to be compromised. The Cornucopians will point to a steady improvement in all aspects of human life over the last two centuries or so, and suggest that there is no reason why this should not continue into the future. The Cornucopians downplay the accelerating problems with the climate and habitat destruction and species extinction. A better future (at least for humans) is promised, mainly by way of technology.

Ecotopia, by contrast, is a vision that takes the environment much more seriously. Ecotopia covers a broad range of beliefs. We noted that

 

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sometimes a better world is thought to come about because of the collapse of capitalism. Or it may be that future large-scale disruption to the climate forces us towards a more sustainable existence. The speed of such changes is critical and it has to be said that rapid changes of the sort envisaged by some Ecotopians are likely to bring chaos to the world rather than the harmonious new existence that they sometimes promise. A slower, smoother transition, however, can only be welcomed and would be more manageable.

Ecotopians don’t often suggest political change to sit alongside the necessary lifestyle and business changes that would be needed to bring about an ecologically-sustainable world.

We’ve seen that Privatopia and Cornucopia are leading us to disaster, and that Ecotopia, by itself, seems to struggle to be realised, because of the complacency of both governments and citizens. As such, a fourth utopia, a new story, has been suggested, which takes mostly the message of Ecotopia and sits it within a political context. This is summarised below, but first let’s look at the six questions raised in the Introduction. The answers to these questions are essentially the ground for the new story that is being proposed.

 

Six Questions

Those six questions were: Who decides? What do we own? What should we share? What should we make? How should we trade? How should we live?

 

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Who decides? Most countries have a system of representative democracy at the moment, so a small number of people make the decisions and the rest of us get only the chance of voting them into or out of office every few years. This book suggests that this is not working, especially with regard to the difficult issues facing the world around climate change.

So, we went on to consider different types of political organisations — polities. One person deciding is a monarchy or a dictatorship. All people deciding together is communism. Everyone deciding for themselves is anarchism. We explored anarchism in particular because it digs down to the roots of why we have politics in the first place.

The lessons of anarchism led to an alternative politics being proposed, where all citizens have the opportunity to participate in decision-making. Three particular styles of governance system were introduced — Sociocracy, Parapolity and Parecon. In discussing Sociocracy in particular, I stressed the need for people to recognise and focus on a vision for the particular business or organisation with which they are involved.

I suggested that Parapolity and Parecon need not be brought about by sudden change away from the current system. The measures suggested could be gradually adopted by current political systems, giving citizens increasingly greater say from the bottom up. Representatives from the smaller circles of governance — neighbourhoods, towns and counties — would go on to form part of national

 

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governments, partly or wholly replacing party politics. Another idea is utilising such methods as Citizens’ Assemblies for specific issues and possibly having a People’s Parliament with representatives chosen by lot to form a permanent fourth estate of government,

perhaps replacing the House of Lords or House of Commons in the UK, for instance. Government may then be made up of the two types of People’s Parliaments — with one house having the representatives from the counties and the second house being the citizens chosen by lot. Party politics would be at an end. As I’ve tried to stress, this is a system of reform and not a call for revolution. Also, institutions — including the executive arms of local and national governments — would still be in place. Indeed, these would be properly independent of the legislature, so arguably less compromised than at present.

To address the questions of owning and sharing we started out by looking at the meaning of a commons. We noted that an unmanaged commons of whatever type is likely to lead to injustice and even catastrophe. The world today, for the most part, runs as an unmanaged commons under capitalism. We explored this in relation to nature, and to the way the material and the cultural economies function. It was noted, in particular, that the economies — as well as disregarding the commons, and the issues of equity that this involves — also fail to recognise the deeper links back to nature inherent in all society and the social relations that underpin society. We observed that there are already social relations supporting the material economy (usually referred to as

 

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reproduction). We noted the wider circle of social relations — giving it the name of ‘re-making’, and including care, maintenance, solidarity, conversation, friendship and intimacy. We have variously described this as the ‘emotional economy’ (by way of contrast with the financial) or the social commons or just as ‘commoning’. Re-making though, also refers us back to all the other economies and to the commons. Our freedom is a freedom-from, but also a freedom-to, and, especially, a freedom to make. So the ‘production’ of the material and cultural economies should be part of that freedom of everyone to be fully involved with their making, and not alienated from it, as we can so often be in the capitalist economies.

Whilst the elements of commoning (maintenance, friendship etc.) are familiar to us all, they are perhaps so close to us that we can miss their relevance. So commoning remains as yet a rather woolly concept; it seems insubstantial. But if commoning were to stop then society would collapse. If, on the other hand, commoning were to increase ten- or a hundred-fold, society would be transformed. That is the new story in a nutshell. In our discussions we have seen the relevance of culture in bringing to light our need for ‘re-making’, for commoning, for the social commons. It is based on personal transformation and on community. It needs therefore to be based on trust.

Participatory Economics — Parecon — was introduced to address two of the remaining questions given above — What should we make? How should we trade? Parecon recognises that

 

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our making and re-making are aspects of community — they are not done in isolation. We noted that Parecon, with regard to trade, could start with those things usually related most closely to governance, such as large infrastructure projects. So, Parecon need not wholly replace a market economy with a planned economy — only as much, or as little, as a community may decide. It leads, amongst other things, to businesses shared as co-operatives, respecting their communities, answerable to the nations that host them, conscious of an environmental ethic and seeing their role as providing a service to others, solving problems and meeting needs in society.

The move to a planned economy, of course, would start to undermine the market economy of consumer capitalism. Throughout the book we have noted calls for the overthrow of the capitalist system — either because this is seen as a necessity to achieve ecological stability, or as part of a political revolution, or to usher in a ‘gift economy’ as an alternative way of living, for its own sake. The message of this work is that contempt for capitalism is a serious error. Overthrowing capitalism is not the path to utopia, it is the zombie apocalypse. Capitalism should not be seen as the enemy, but certainly it needs radical change. It does not need to be premised on debt and seeking profit above all else. The change involves all of us. Neo-liberalism doesn’t care about our identity, so long as we’re working and spending. It pretends to foster individuality but just wants us as drones. We saw that we’re not really looking to challenge the number-crunching side of economics. The concern is rather that the social

 

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side of things is neglected. The economics — especially neo-liberal economics, sees us as fully rational, individual and entirely self-interested in our behaviour. It ignores the complexity of humans as, firstly, irrational. And, along with being irrational, we are not purely self-interested — we have as much interest in friends, family, relationships, community, solidarity, care, compassion, celebration, harmony, conversation, carnival and art. These ‘different pleasures’, I have tried to suggest, are the undergirding for changes to our politics, our institutions and our economy. Throughout the book we have been contrasting what might be termed structural change (changing the system) with personal change. But, to an extent, changing the system comes down to changing people as well. We would not seek to change the system, or try to impose the changes through laws and regulations, if we had not ourselves first changed to want to live in different ways and see different outcomes.

I have suggested that this personal change is partly about us being open to different pleasures. Finding our pleasure, I suggest, is a better path than seeking emancipation from some perceived oppression. This thought takes us on to consider our final question — How should we live? To answer this, we move on to summarise the new story that the book has proposed.

 

The New Story

In the Introduction and Chapter 2, we looked at the contrast between abstract ideals and concrete utopias. If we are promoting a utopia

 

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though, we cannot be overly-prescriptive, we cannot have all concrete, we need a balance of ideals and concrete proposals so that the better world we hope for will be open to change and can unfold over time. So any new story needs to be open to changing circumstances and dissenting voices. Throughout the book I’ve been suggesting that we already live in stories and identified three ‘flavours’ — Privatopia, Cornucopia and Ecotopia. We’ve seen from Chapter 2 that Cornucopia is a golden age of the future, Ecotopia, to an extent, a golden age of the past, and Privatopia recognises what we have already achieved and hopes to preserve our ‘good lives’ indefinitely, without considering the consequences. A new story, I’ve tried to suggest, blends all of the good elements of these stories whilst taking heed of their blind spots.

What is the vision for the new story? The vision needs to be a broad one, that considers the Earth and future generations as well as our own immediate needs. The new story is primarily about three things — full participation in our governance, equity in our dealings with each other and trust.

Today we are well-placed to take up such a broad vision. Communication is at our finger-tips and we can learn and comment and criticise as never before. The critical attitude can be negative — leading to internet trolls and personal attacks on politicians. But the critical attitude also has the potential to be a very positive thing, meaning that we will demand a much greater say in how our lives are run as communities and as nations. This is my hope.

 

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The very first thing is that we get a vote about the kind of government we would like. The number one vision is for everyone to have a say in how society is organised, from the local to the national and international levels.

Society is changing and people are questioning authority more and more, especially as the world wakes up to issues around climate change. If we abdicate responsibility for our politics, we can blame politicians for our problems and absolve ourselves of responsibility — but this is a cop-out. The message is — start living the new story now. Don’t let us underestimate the influence that a minority of voices can have on the majority. Even although the number of dissenting voices is small, change can happen fast. There could be enough counter-culture — enough of the emerging new story — for us to achieve radical change. In 50 years’ time, young people will be asking why people of our time were so stupid.

Given the type of polity I have promoted in the book, I have had to try to avoid being too prescriptive about the decisions it might make. I cannot even presume to judge what decisions may be reached over our six questions, or indeed, what a Parapolity might make of the related matter of the commons. However, I have tried to give some pointers in relation to four specific areas — nature, place, compassion and pleasure, and the suggestions are summarised in the chapter on, What We Might Decide, If We Could Decide.

What does living the new story really mean? As I’ve suggested above, and throughout the book,

 

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‘different pleasures’ would be the best way to sum it up. We are already sacrificing a lot to serve the masters of consumer-capitalism — including our time, our money and often our sanity. How about instead seeing any sacrifice we might make as being a sacrifice to bring us more pleasure and beauty? The new story is about the play-off between the materialism of neo-liberal capitalism and a world premised on beauty, pleasure, silence, slowness, peace, grace, kindness, conversation, humour, art, play, celebration and carnival.

Of course, I have to face up to the fact that if a system of Parapolity were set in place, people might make many choices that I found fool-hardy, reckless or irresponsible. We might all quickly conclude that a representative democracy was not so bad after all, and beat a hasty retreat! We definitely need to have an escape hatch, back to the ‘Westminster model’ if necessary. And then maybe our best hope would be to get Westminster to abide by its own Westminster code of conduct.

But even if the decisions that people find are not to our liking — even so, I feel the effort of raising questions about governance will have been worthwhile. Just knowing more about what we really think will have been a step in the right direction. The burden is not on us to convert the whole world, or to rescue it, or somehow force it to be different. That doesn’t mean there’s nothing to do, but it’s about getting out of the way sometimes and letting things take their own course. At best, we can only be catalysts — enablers — and try to live our own truth. Then it’s down to trust. Through

 

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our explorations in this book, we’ve seen that culture, narrative, story-telling, drama, fiction, art, celebration and carnival are the routes most likely to get us to adopt new stories in our real lives — stories that will make for a sustainable and flourishing world. Also, of course, a strong link to a particular place and to nature.

 

Trust

So what about that personal issue mentioned in the Introduction — the issue of trust? If participation at all levels of politics really took off then, of course, it means ordinary people like you and me being trusted with big decisions that affect our lives. Would things really be better? In particular, would people be willing to make the tough choices that we must face in relation to climate change? This issue of trust is really at the core of all the ideas expressed in the book about governance, the commons, and even in our stories of utopia.

The key question is — if we were all genuinely given the opportunity to fully participate in decision-making — would we make good decisions? It has to be faced that sometimes the decisions will not be good. There will be mistakes, but there will also be the opportunity to change decisions and learn from our errors.

What if a Citizens’ Assembly was set up on climate change — as proposed by, amongst others, Extinction Rebellion? The people chosen for the assembly are then faced with making changes that would deeply affect them

personally, like giving up their cars and paying heavy taxes on anything involving carbon

 

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emissions — which, let’s face it, is more or less everything. Would people make the choices necessary to help the planet and future generations? Or would they choose instead to protect their own lifestyles?

Well, part of the answer is that there is our general stance towards society and there is our personal stance towards people we meet directly, such as family, friends and work colleagues. We can choose to trust. As with the discussions above about changing the system and changing people, I think changing our personal attitude in our direct relationships is the key to changing things at a broader level. If we invest people with enough responsibility, give them the benefit of the doubt and trust them to make good decisions, then, I believe, most people will rise to this challenge and make choices that will be for the good of society and not just to protect their personal lifestyles. They are all premised on trust, which leads to a hope for the future. It is not a naïve hope, even although the troubles the world faces now are significant. It is not mere optimism, or wishing for the best. It is making a decision to work for a better future. I recognise though, that this places a certain burden on the reader. I am indirectly saying that yes, you too must change. And perhaps that will leave readers uncomfortable. Maybe it will help to say that the issue of trust remains a burden to the author as well. Depending on mood and the most recent encounters with others; I am sometimes filled with hope and at other times I discover I have a leaning towards the need for authoritarian power to impose change on society.

 

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I am not fully cured of my issues around trust. But, perhaps with my advancing age and the good experiences I’ve had in recent years, I believe that, for the most part, humans are incredible. With time and focus and thought, ordinary people are more than a match for any circumstance that might confront us. Choosing to trust should not be a burden, it should not be striving, it should instead be relaxing into an easier relationship with ourselves and our fellow human beings. So, yes, the story can be a journey of trust. I invite the reader to trust too. I invite the reader to participate, so that together we might build a new story.

 

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17. Glossary

The descriptions provided here try to summarise the way the various terms have been used in the book. Some of the terms are especially liable to shifting meanings over time, or to different interpretations. I’ve tried to explain the various nuances of many of these, both here and in the main text.

Anarchism Absence or abolition of government, the term is used in this work as one of the three ways to bring about changing society, the others being Reform and Revolution.- Collectivist Anarchists are committed to no government, but the collectivists recognise the need for some organisation in order to make decisions, whilst avoiding institutions, bureaucracy and hierarchy.

- Individualist Anarchists who are most

committed to freedom and independence.- Syndicalist Anarchists especially interested in organisation around production, which is the area they see as most needing collective decision-making.

Assemblies See Federalism.

Capital

- Constant Capital That part of wealth that maintains property and the means of production.

- Commodity Capital Stock of produce

held by a company.

- Cultural Capital Intelligence, imagination and creativity, and their products, art, literature, music, etc.

- Financial Capital Sometimes just money in

 

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general, but more specifically, money used for future production.

- Human Capital Value innate to people,

including labour and work.

- Material Capital I use this term to distinguish the capital produced by the material economy from that which is produced by the other types of economy discussed in the text.- Natural Capital Often referring to all of

nature (originally just called ‘land’) but preferably just those natural resources that are regarded as essential to be used by humans, whilst some of nature is retained as wild.- Physical Capital What I’ve called natural

resources, or material wealth.

- Productive Capital Assets retained and

used for production.

- Social Capital The value in the connections between people.

- Variable Capital Labour power. (In Marx,

the power that creates surplus value.)

Capitalism Generally referring to a mode of

production focused on the production of goods for exchange, that is, commodity. The term also includes a few other ideas that are seen as critical: The idea of scarcity. The idea of competition. The idea that the financing of capitalism is by way of financial debt and the idea that the primary aim of capitalism is for profit. As the rate of profit is understood to fall over time, the amount of debt required to maintain production with at least the same profit increases, and hence the appropriation of the natural commons continues to increase to meet this need. (The falling rate of profit is however an idea contested by many economists.)

 

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Citizens’ Assembly A temporary grouping of citizens, often chosen by lot, who meet to deliberate over a particular matter within society. Some suggest that such assemblies could become a more long-term feature of governance, as part of a system of participatory politics (Parapolity).

Co-housing Community housing. Usually a privately-owned housing development with some shared facilities, and often with some form of consensus governance system, such as Sociocracy. Co-housing developments often aspire towards sustainable living options.

Cockaigne A medieval utopia, reachable only

by eating through three miles of rice pudding.

Commodity/commodification Goods obtained through purchase. Whilst the commodity may still be a useful product, there is an element of its monetary value that still adheres. Hence, commodification suggests something being reduced to a financial calculation only, away from its use-value and social value.

Commoning Individual acts that relate to a physical or emotional commons, such as sharing, compassion and kindness.

Commons

- Natural Commons Often referring to

all of nature, but preferably just those natural resources that are regarded as essential to be used by humans, whilst some of nature is retained as wild.

 

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- Cultural Commons Eisenstein refers to

intellectual property and creative copyright here, but I prefer to use the term to refer to the actual wealth produced, as in celebration, art, music and literature, rather than the copyrighting of these.

- Spiritual Commons Imagination and creativity.

- Social Commons Compassion, gifts and sharing.

Communism A belief in no government, like anarchism, but also communism believes in no private property and more or less equal status for all citizens. There has never been a nation that achieved true communism. The idea of a ‘communist state’ is, at best, a transitional stage (the dictatorship of the proletariat) to true communism and the phrase is really a contradiction in terms. Where states have tried to impose communism on their populations, this has generally gone very seriously wrong.

Community The term is often used by government to refer just to a geographical region. But community is also used to refer to people living in the same place or to a group of people linked by common interests, who may nonetheless be geographically isolated. The word is usually used in a positive sense, but it’s fair to point out that there is always some kind of community relation going on in every human life, even where this is entirely negative. Place-based community is especially important for the argument of this book. Neighbourhood is probably a better term to use for this, to distinguish it from the purely administrative meaning often used by councils and

 

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governments.

Compassion/ Sympathy/Empathy

Compassion is practical action taken as a

result of sympathy towards oneself or another. Empathy is the emotion behind sympathy and compassion. In this book, compassion includes shared pleasures and also compassion for oneself. Compassion and pleasure are seen as deeply linked.

Confederation/Confederalism Sometimes

used in contrast to federalism. Federalism is often regarded as a top-down, state-imposed delegating of some decision-making to smaller regions within a nation. By contrast, confederalism organises from the grass-roots. Although the latter is the preferred option in this book, I have still used the term federalism to describe it, and have explained the difference in the text.

Consequentialism Governance system where the day-to-day decision-making is seen as more important than the form of governance itself or the ideals of a political theory or party. The term is often used in contrast to Proceduralism. Consequentialism is sometimes also referred to as Instrumentalism.

Conservation/Environmentalism/Ecology/ Deep Ecology These all offer different

approaches to the human treatment of the bio-sphere. Conservation may seek to preserve particular environments, even when these are human-made, such as a particular farming landscape. Environmentalism is more focused on nature, but this tends to be nature as we

 

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might like it to be for humans. Ecology recognises the importance of all flora and fauna within a bio-region and/or the whole planet. Deep Ecology tends to give priority to the flora and fauna, over and above humans. These definitions are of course, fuzzy-edged and blend into one another.

Cornucopia One of the flavours of utopia identified in this work. Cornucopians take a very positive view of the future, with abundance achieved mainly through technological advance.

Democracy Originally a bad form of governance by the many, a corruption of polity.- Deliberative A governance system where there is universal suffrage and where all or most citizens have the opportunity to discuss things that will affect their lives and directly influence the decision-making process. In this book, both Citizens’ Assemblies and Participatory Politics are seen as forms of Deliberative Democracy.

- Direct Universal suffrage again, but Direct Democracy is often used to describe a system that uses referendums, so there is a direct vote, but not necessarily much deliberation.

- Representative A system where the citizens elect people to represent their views and/or make decisions on their behalf (a critical distinction that is often a source of contention in representative government). The citizens have little or no power to veto decisions between elections.

Dystopia A bad vision of the future or an

existing vision for a better world that has turned

 

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out to be worse rather than better. Dystopia is used to contrast with utopia, and some would argue that many utopian visions would in fact turn out to be dystopias.

Eco-village Usually small-scale private housing developments where the emphasis is on sustainable building methods and materials, energy-efficiency and ecologically sustainable lifestyles. Many eco-villages are also run as co-housing developments.

Economy

- Command Economy See Planned Economy below.

- Cultural Economy Art, Music, Literature. One of the five economies considered in this book, and key to making explicit the disparities between the other economies, notably the suppression of the emotional economy, and the emphasis on the material.

- Emotional Economy Compassion, solidarity, conviviality, friendship, love. I also use the term ‘re-making’ in this book, to represent all of the above, and to complement the ‘making’ of the material economy. One of the five economies considered in this book, and critically it is the one that is least recognised in its importance for the good functioning of society.

- Financial Economy Traditionally, Just the support of money for the functioning of production and exchange, but now covers transactions of money increasingly abstract from the physical world.

- Market Economy Referring to market decisions being the best way to keep prices, inflation, employment etc. stable and efficient,

 

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and also implying that market forces are the best way for this to be achieved, with little interference from government. The term is often used in contrast to a Planned or Command Economy.

- Material EconomyProduction and sale of physical goods and usually also refers to services such as care and the hospitality industries. One of the five economies considered in this book.

- Natural Economy Nature is considered as an economy in this book, especially in Chapter 9, and so is one of the five economies. Nature, in particular, is the archetypal circular economy, that might serve as a model for our other economies. (Or we could say that all the other economies are already part of nature’s circle, but not necessarily in a way that is working very well. Pollution is the obvious example.)- Planned EconomyIn contrast to the Market Economy, a Planned Economy (or Command Economy) regulates, by government, or by some other means, the flow of goods and services in order to achieve some specific goals. This might be to full employment, to conserve resources or to achieve a fairer and more equal society.- Spatial Economy One of the five economies considered in this book, the term is used in Chapter 8, essentially to mean Place.

Economic Rent Traditionally, income from

the rent of land and property, the profit from the labour of others and the interest gained on money.

Ecotopia One of the flavours of utopia

identified in this book, Ecotopia works to achieve an ecologically-sustainable future.

 

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Equality

- of opportunity Where all citizens have a

reasonably equal potential in such things as education, work opportunities, their treatment by the state and their status under the law.- of outcome Equality in the stricter

sense that society is arranged to ensure that all citizens obtain a roughly equal share of resources, no matter their age, state of health, intelligence etc.

Externality

- Positive externality Something that is

considered more or less a free resource in terms of economics, such as, traditionally, nature and the emotional commons (the latter not even clearly recognised as a resource, although highlighted by Marx.)

- Negative externality Something that is a

bad result of economic activity, but for which the economy does not carry a direct cost, for instance pollution and the effects of climate change.

Federalism

- Federations and Assemblies Local arrangement of a governance system. I use the term in the book to mean a grass-roots system such as in Participatory Politics, and not to mean local organisation that is devised and controlled by a state.

- Cellular and Associationalist Used to refer

to grass-roots small-scale governance, which together form larger assemblies. The Participatory Politics and Deliberative Democracy systems described in the book are cellular and associationalist systems.

 

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Free trade Referring to trade without tariffs

or other restrictions imposed by governments, but the term is also sometimes used to refer to ‘free market’, that is, favouring international business.

Golden Age Referring to a past or future time when life is idyllic, so a golden age is often the basis of a utopia.

Goods

- Rival/Non-rival A rival good is one where

its use or consumption will prevent it being used by someone else, such as, food or energy. A non-rival good is one where its use does not exclude others, such as street lighting, and other types of public infrastructure, and also, critically for this book, most types of cultural commons.

- Exclusive/Inclusive Similar to Rival/Non-rival above, but often used to refer to social and cultural ‘goods’. Streaming a song or a film for instance is, to an extent, exclusive, whilst a concert or a film show is more inclusive. Clearly there are fuzzy boundaries here, in particular, the commercialisation of culture may lead it towards being less inclusive.- Expansive Again, mainly referring to social and cultural goods. Most forms are expansive in the sense that they grow with use, such that compassion and friendship lead to more compassion and friendship, and artworks, music and literature will often inspire new works to be produced. The expansiveness extends to all of the other economies, as all are potentially related by means of the exchange of gifts. (See Chapter 8.)

 

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Government

- Aristocracy Rule by a few.- Democracy See separate entry.- Dictatorship Bad form of Monarchy.- Monarchy Rule by one, often a king

or queen.

- Oligarchy Bad form of Aristocracy.- Polity Good form of rule by the

many (of which, Democracy is the bad form).

Grace The word is used in this book to suggest that the universe is not neutral but is generally benevolent towards life. As such, grace may be a further ‘economy’ that underpins and sustains life.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) A measure of the economic output of a society.

Happiness In this book, the definition of

pleasure and purpose sustained over time is adopted.

Hierarchy

- Dominator Hierarchy

A ‘power-over’ structure imposed by authority and possibly aggression.

- Reciprocal Hierarchy

A ‘power-with’ structure that implies co-operation.

Idealism Values and other regulative beliefs

that impose an order on decision-making (especially of governments) but which are of a generalised and often abstract nature. Often criticised for not being pragmatic. In this book the idealistic aspects of many utopian visions

 

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are contrasted with the more pragmatic and concrete visions.

Instrumentalism See Consequentialism.

Intentional Community Usually housing and

perhaps other building types such as workshops and offices, built and run with a particular ethos in mind. An intentional community may be a religious community or may be a term used in relation to eco-village developments, where the ‘intention’ is towards sustainable living.

Joy The emotion underlying pleasure and

happiness, but sometimes also taken to mean a long-lasting sense of pleasure and contentment.

Land traditional term used in economics to refer to all aspects of nature used in production, so water, air, sunshine, soil, etc. as well as actual physical real estate.

Marginal Utility In economics, the benefit

of producing one additional unit of anything. This may, in balance, not be worthwhile, so the marginal utility value is the cut-off point in what is worth producing. The concept of marginal utility seems to derive from Friedrich von Wieser, but the term is usually attributed to Alfred Marshall. The emphasis of utility to the consumer (discussed especially with regard to neo-liberalism) was first explored by Carl Menger and William Stanley Jevons.

Means of Production Tools, factories etc.

used for the production of material goods. Having the ‘means of production’ is a key feature of arguments for communism and

 

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socialism, as this allows the workers to control their making in order to benefit directly themselves from the production process rather than profits going to business owners.

Meritocracy An organisation or governance system based on ability or intelligence.

Municipalism See Confederation/Confederalism.

Nationalism Could be a benign honour and respect for one’s nation. However, at least in several societies, the term has come to mean a negative form of government or political belief that excludes others, including a hostility towards foreign nationals within the nation’s borders. Nationalism is often contrasted unfavourably with patriotism.

Nature This book gives special emphasis

to everything being within nature. In particular, all of the other four economies discussed — material, cultural, emotional and spatial — are contained by the economy of nature.

Neighbourhood Small group of geographically-close houses and related facilitites. Neighbourhood and place are essential to the argument of this work.

Neo-liberalism A conflation of the ‘neo’ of

neo-classical economics (with its emphasis on production) and ‘liberal’ from the rights and privileges afforded by a liberal society — and especially freedom. The aims of neo-liberalism could be seen as benign and it could be argued that no nation has ever managed to practice

 

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neo-liberalism in its ‘pure’ form. However, attempts at neo-liberalism have led to contradictions of its core values and bad consequences. Some might argue that one or more of the consequences have been the underlying intention of neo-liberalism all along (such as disparities of wealth). Critics also often conflate neo-liberalism with capitalism, seeing it as the style of economics that encourages, in their view, the worst aspects of capitalism.

Noble Savage The idea (usually attributed to Rousseau) that humankind, in our early history, was largely benign and free of such negative features as aggression, paternalism, hierarchy and selfishness.

Opportunity Cost In economics, literally, the

next best thing that a person would choose to do, or, the thing they would give up in order to do their first choice. Often, this is related to money value, but economics often start with the example of Robinson Crusoe deciding between fishing or collecting coconuts. The term was first coined by Friedrich von Wieser. Von Wieser, notably, related the opportunity cost to whole societies rather than individual choice. The difference between price and opportunity cost is the economic rent.

Organic Term used by Murray Bookchin,

amongst others, usually used to imply positive features of people living close to nature, much as for ‘noble savage’ as described above.

Participatory Economics (Parecon) A form of planned economy, where decisions about production and distribution are made by

 

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all citizens and not regulated via market forces.

Participatory Politics (Parapolity) A type of deliberative democracy. In this book I have used the term Parapolity to mean both a grass-roots federalism type of government (also known as Associationalist or Cellular) and a Citizens’ Assembly style often appointed by sortition, that is, by lot.

Patriotism In this book I use the term to

mean pride and honour associated with a particular place or nation, but one which is generous, inclusive and welcoming — giving special regard to foreigners, visitors, as well as to other groups who may be in danger of being marginalised by society. In this regard, patriotism is almost directly opposed to nationalism and populism.

People’s Parliament Used in this book to

refer to a government, or an estate of government, by means of one or both of the types of participatory politics described above.

Permaculture Originally ‘permanent agriculture’. A system to maximise agricultural yield with minimum effort, in particular, using perennial crops, and no artificial pesticides and fertilisers. The term has been expanded to include ideas about human society and more general care of the planet. Permaculture is often regarded now as one form of Regenerative Agriculture.

Pleasure In this book, taken to be the

foundation of a person’s emotional life and deeply linked to compassion for self and

 

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compassion of a community and society. Recognising and exploring our pleasures is seen as key to devising a new story.

Privatopia The term is used to describe our

current Western system of consumer capitalism and is one of the three flavours of utopia described in the book.

Proceduralism A style of government

where the form of government itself and/or its ideals are seen as more important, and leading to better decisions, than dealing with situations as they occur and making judgements based on pragmatism. (It could reasonably be asserted that the book’s focus on deliberative democracy is a proceduralist stance.)

Politics Taken to mean governance by the

people in this book, and as distinct from party politics or the state.

Polity A general term for governance, but used more specifically to refer to government by the people, as per politics above.

Populism A style of politics where the

allegiance of the many is obtained by blaming or excluding some other group, either within or outside the society. Right-wing populism might target immigrants. Left-wing populism might see the 1% as the minority group that causes society’s problems. Populism is often contrasted unfavourably with patriotism.

Power

- Power-over Power based on hierarchy,

and often associated with paternalism,

 

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exploitation and dominance.

- Power-to The ability to work within the context of flourishing as a person, as in having independence, autonomy and self-direction. Making one’s own story.

- Power-with Including the elements of

power-to above, but also including co-operation with others.

- Power-under Sometimes meaning subversion of existing power structures, sometimes meaning to welcome existing power structures and sometimes meaning to seek ways of living outwith existing hierarchies of power.

Pre-distribution In contrast to re-distribution, the idea (from John Rawls) that wealth — for instance, from the natural commons — should be distributed equally to people in advance of any production etc. This is so that poorer people do not need to be supported by allowing a few to become very wealthy from exploiting the natural commons and then taxing them to redistribute the wealth back to the poor.

Property and Possession Property is used in this book to mean just ownership whilst possession is used to mean ownership with responsibility. The terms could be applied to material things, but could also be extended, for instance, to contrast ‘intellectual property’ with ‘intellectual possession’. This might in turn suggest alternatives to copyright and patent law.

Proportionality As an alternative to absolute equality, proportionality means a fair share, in proportion, for instance, to the amount

 

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of work a person does.

Re-Making The term is used in the book to mean ‘reproduction’ in its traditional understanding in economics, but also all aspects of the emotional/social commons that support the material economy, but are generally un-acknowledged.

Re-Wilding Allowing land (including rivers, lakes and oceans) to be taken back by nature, often with minimal intervention by humans, but sometimes with selective planting of native flora and the re-introduction of native fauna.

Reform One of the three ways identified in

the book to change our governance system — reform, revolution or anarchism. Reform suggests gradual change. The systems of Parapolity promoted by the book are intended as gradual reform and not sudden breaks with current systems.

Regenerative agriculture A system of agriculture that takes in numerous techniques, but, in particular, avoids chemical fertilisers and pesticides and tries to achieve a natural balance in its processes. Regenerative agriculture is also especially concerned with the preservation of healthy soil.

Rentier One who benefits from ‘economic

rent’, but the term has also come to be used in ‘rentier capitalism’ — where all aspects of a society are commodified and are therefore available to be rented back to others.

Republican Literally this means government

 

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without a monarchy. However it also implies a degree of involvement with government by the population at large. It is an especially difficult term to define, with its association with right-wing politics in the USA. The plea for ‘republican values’ is as much a slippery term as nationalism, populism, patriotism and liberalism. But we might include government by public discussion, the idea of a common good, openness to differing opinions and a search for truth. Freedom is also important, and republicans see freedom as ‘socially constructed’. Republicanism is also closely linked to the ownership of property.

Revolution Sudden overthrow of government. One of the three ways to change society identified in this book, the others being reform and anarchism.

Silence Not to be taken entirely literally,

but as well as actual silence it is the contrast between ‘sound’ and ‘noise’. The term is used in this book to denote a desirable state where there is minimal intrusion by unwanted noise, especially as a component of a simple lifestyle. Good music, laughter, birdsong etc., under this definition, would be welcomed as beneficial sound.

Slowness As with silence above, not necessarily literally slow, but rather having things at an appropriate speed, both in one’s own life and in wider society. Again, a potential component of a simple lifestyle.

Socialism Government that emphasises equity, fair distribution of resources and social

 

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justice.

Sociocracy A governance system based on all participants having a voice, mutual obligations, and a commitment to vision, mission and aims. Sociocracy also tries to avoid hierarchy and tries to adapt to changing circumstances. In this book, Sociocracy is taken as a suitable basis for deliberative democracy.

Sortition Choosing by lot. Used in this

book especially in relation to Citizens’ Assemblies, a system of governance that might, in turn, form one type of people’s parliament.

Statism Literally, of the state, but used

negatively to imply top-down governance.

Subsidiarity Decision-making that is based on the region that will be affected by the matters that are being decided, such that, what is local is only decided locally, and so on. Subsidiarity is a key ingredient of deliberative democracy and Parapolity.

Surplus value In Marxist economics, there is only one true value, labour power, whose use-value is the ability to produce value larger than its own exchange value. For Marx therefore, the process of production is the process of the production of surplus value.- Absolute Producing more by adding more

labour.

- Relative Producing more by improving the

means of production and/or the speed/skill of labour.

Triple bottom line Planet, people, profit.

 

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Usually offered as an alternative to capitalism that is purely based on the profit motive.

Usury Making money from money, rather than from work. One of the three forms of economic rent.

Utopia A vision for a better world. A

utopia can be idealistic or pragmatic or a mixture of the two.

Value

- Commodity value Mainly meaning value derived from exchange, but also implies that things that would not normally be bought and sold (like nature or friendship) have been reduced to mere transactions, that is, have become commodified.

- Use/Utility value Value that something has when directly used, traditionally in contrast to commodity value, but note that commodities also contain some use-value, otherwise there is no point in buying or selling them.- Exchange value The value of goods when

bought and sold.

- Extrinsic value A material value (either

use-value or commodity value) used in contrast to intrinsic value.

- Instrumental value Similar to extrinsic

value above, but often used to imply a misuse of something.

- Intrinsic value Having value in and of

itself. We may say this in regard to a person or with reference to wild nature. It implies that we should not use people and not use at least some aspects of nature only for their instrumental or extrinsic value.

 

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Vision/Mission/Aims From Sociocracy. The vision is how we wish the world to be. The mission is the process of change involved in achieving the vision. The aims are the means by which the changes are brought about.

Wealth

- Common Wealth A collective term, often referring to natural resources, and implying that these are shared resources.

- Cultural Wealth The wealth (more specifically, the benefit to community and to personal thoughts, imagination and creativity) derived from art, music, literature.- Material Wealth A material production process produces wealth, first and foremost. The wealth might be used directly by the producer or by others. All capital comes from wealth, but not all wealth is capital.- Social Wealth The benefits derived from

community and the interactions between us, thus, in the terms used in this book, from the emotional economy, the social commons and re-making.

Wild Nature

- Wild Body The term is used in the book as a reminder of our connection with nature. All aspects of self are embodied.

- Wild Mind The term is used again as a reminder that knowledge, creativity and imagination are not separate from nature.- Wild Soul The book uses this term to

suggest that there is a wider economy that supports the manifest world of nature and which is benevolent towards the life in which we participate.

 

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18. Bibliography

Utopia — Thomas More

Rutger Bregman — Utopia for Realists

Gregory Claeys — Utopia — The History of an Idea

Krishan Kumar — Utopia and Anti-Utopia in Modern Times

Frank E. Manuel and Fritizie P. Manuel — Utopian Thought in the Western World

Andrew Keen — How to Fix the Future

Evan Eisenberg —The Ecology of Eden

Darren Anderson — Imaginary Cities

Raj Patel and Jason W. Moore — A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things

Murray Bookchin — The Ecology of Freedom

Richard Sennet — Together

Stewart Brand — Whole Earth Discipline

David Owen — Green Metropolis

Per Espen Stoknes — What we think about when we try not to think about Global Warming.

Garrett Hardin — Filters Against Folly

Adam Smith —The Wealth of Nations

 

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Henry George — Progress and Poverty

Karl Marx — Capital

Robert Putman — Bowling Alone

Roger Scruton — A View from Somewhere

Cindy Milstein — Anarchism and its Aspirations

Chris Carlsson — Nowtopia

Robert Greene — Power

M. Scott Peck — A Different Drum

David Bohm — On Dialogue

Keith Sutherland — A People’s Parliament

Ernst Callenbach (the author of the novel, Ecotopia) and Michael Philips — A Citizen Legislature

Marjorie Kelly — Owning Our Future

John Rawls — A Theory of Justice

Carl Honore — In Praise of Slow

Alexander Lowen — Pleasure

David Abram — The Spell of the Sensuous

David Abram — Becoming Animal

Mary Reynolds Thompson — Reclaiming the Wild

 

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Soul

Theodore Zeldin — Happiness

Theodore Zeldin — The Hidden Pleasures of Life

Paul Bloom — How Pleasure Works

Alex Evans — The Myth Gap

Joel Kovel — The Enemy of Nature — The End of Capitalism or the End of the World?

Hernando de Soto — The Mystery of Capital

Robert Skidelsky and Edward Skidelsky — How Much is Enough?

‘Starhawk’ — Truth or Dare

Wendell Berry — Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community

George Monbiot — Feral

Andro Linklater — Owning the Earth

Fawzi Ibrahim — Capitalism Versus Planet Earth

Charles Eisenstein — Sacred Economics

Charles Eisenstein — The Beautiful World that our Hearts Know is Possible

Steven Pinker — The Blank Slate

Jonathan Porritt — Capitalism as if the World Matters

 

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Martin Adams — Land

Will Storr — The Age of the Selfie

Josh Ryan-Collins, Toby Lloyd and Laurie Macfarlane — Rethinking the Economics of Land and Housing

Michael Albert — Practical Utopia

John Holloway — Change the World without Taking Power

David Goodhart — The Road to Somewhere

Peter Barnes — Capitalism 3.0

David C. Korten — The Great Turning — From Empire to Earth Community

Guy Standing — Plunder of the Commons

Guy Standing — Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen

Tom Hodgkinson — How to be Free

Paul Collier — The Future of Capitalism

A C Grayling — The Good State

David Fleming — Surviving the Future

Kevin O’Leary — Saving Democracy

Joseph Heath – Enlightenment 2.0

 

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Arturo Escobar — Designs for the Pluriverse

Kate Raworth – Doughnut Economics

Colin Tudge – The Great Re-Think

David Harvey — Rebel Cities

 

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Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Jonathan Baxter, Sarah Gittins, Joanna Foster and all other members of Dundee Artists in Residence (D-AiR) and to the Dundee Commons group (If the City were a Commons), and to Kimberley Ellis. I’d also like to thank those I have interviewed or corresponded with as part of the research for the book. I mention, in particular, Colin Fox and Michael Nosdivad (Scottish Socialist Party), Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP and Christine Jardine MP (Liberal Democrat), Andy Whiteman MSP (Green Party), Gordon Lyndhurst MSP (Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party), Iain Morse (Brexit Party — now Reform UK), Robert Hodgarth (Edinburgh Southside Community Council), Justin Kenrick (Extinction Rebellion) and Topaz Pauls, Bren Muirhead and Carlos Martin (Reconfigure).

Special thanks go to those who have read and given feedback on the book: Maureen Parnell, Mark O’Reilly and Douglas Westwater. Much of the writing of the book has taken place in cafés in and around Edinburgh. I mention, in particular, The Chapter One Coffee House (Dalry Road), Edinburgh Coffee and Cake (South Nicholson Street), The Printworks Café (Constitution Street), Qupi (Leith Walk), L’Etoile (West Port), Martone (now ‘Society’, Waterloo Place), Santosa (Albert Street), The Chocolate Tree (now The Maytree, Bruntsfield Place), Vigo (Saint John’s Road, Corstorphine) and Carpe Diem (Main Street, Kirkliston, now closed). Also, various branches of Caffe Nero, especially at South Bridge Street, Lothian Road, Stafford Street, Infirmary Street and Nicholson Street. And also, pubs, The Southern and South Pour

 

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Utopia Governance and the Commons

(both in South Nicholson Street) and The Grosvenor (Shandwick Place).

 

440