Every day, we are engulfed by news about the economy. There is no other topic we obsess over more.
In Karl Polanyi’s “The Great Transformation,” instead of the economy being a servant of society, the society becomes a servant of the economy. War is “good for the economy,” industries destroy ecology, essential medical treatment is withheld and firms profit from dubious products.
Every decision is evaluated through an economic lens. The rich and the poor are both enslaved by these pressures.
If we go back 300 years, at our current level of economic growth, we would expect to be living in abundance. However, economic scarcity is endemic. No matter how much we earn, we are left needing more.
Every island of prosperity is surrounded by an ocean of poverty.
In a debt-based economy, the richest country in the world (the United States) has the highest level of debt.
But let’s explore shifting our collective mindset from scarcity to abundance.
At a parking garage in New York City, we ran into an attendant named Philip. His exuberant demeanor celebrated life. He was not crushed by stress, but rather had preserved the joyous spirit of his native Caribbean.
Philip was baffled by how the middle and upper classes in America so often lead miserable lives by making happiness dependent upon a multitude of external conditions.
In the Caribbean, just being outside with friends brought bliss. In America, despite material wealth, there is a multitude of unfulfilled wants; we get sucked into a labyrinth of endless desires.
Philip’s perspective exposes a bias in business that produces a state of “manufactured scarcity” despite material abundance. As material desires are satisfied, expectations and consumption keep rising — and so does chronic scarcity.
Philip understood that abundance and scarcity are not objective, external conditions. They are a deeply subjective inner state of consciousness.
Philip inspired us to see that manufactured scarcity is at the root of greed and discontent, and while there are some who remain beggars beneath expensive suits, many others who appear to be poor may actually live in abundance.
Recognizing that abundance and scarcity are not material constructs, we can celebrate varied forms of abundance — of friendship, love, marital harmony, wisdom and creativity.
Abundance-oriented cultures embrace life as play and purge excessive seriousness out of daily lives.
On YouTube, you will find policemen in the so-called Third World finding joy in directing traffic synchronized to dance sequences. This is in contrast to tense individuals in gray suits in offices that have morphed into graveyards of creativity.
In “Playthings,” the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore says:
“Child, I have forgotten the art of being absorbed in sticks and mud-pies.
I seek out costly playthings and gather lumps of gold and silver.
In my frail canoe I struggle to cross the sea of desire and forget that I too am playing a game.”
The economic mindset produces scarcity by having us aspire to material desires beyond our reach, while programming spiritual poverty in us in the form of greed.
By transcending the material paradigm, we can appreciate the paradox that some forms of abundance grow in sharing and giving — the more we love, the more love there is within us and in the world.
We can then evolve from our current prison of homo economicus to an expanded freedom of homo aestheticus — to feel abundance all around.