Part One: Economic Abundance and Scarcity

Readings:

“Scarcity, Abundance, and Violence” by Robert Gould

Key Dilemma of Part One:

Can we resolve the conflict between abstract value (money) and the real values of human community and the collective generosity that it requires?

Review of List of Navigation Strategies for Seemingly Intractable Conflicts, Differences, and Dilemmas:

Glossary:

• Indigenous/Native/Ancestral Peoples: Populations of people who preceded civilization, and who, today, continue to maintain the practices and beliefs of their ancestors.
• Gift Economy: Societies where items of value are internally gifted to members on the basis of ability to gift and need for gift: indigenous, utopian, and end-state communism.
• Reciprocal Gift Economy: Societies that externally trade with each other societies, based on the principle of reciprocating gifts. There is no bartering or monetary value placed on trade items. This sort of trade is understood as promoting friendship between societies or overcoming hostilities: indigenous, utopian, and end-state communism.
• Bartering Economy: Bartering began when reciprocal gift economies changed from friendly exchanges to ascribing qualitative values to trade items. A trade transaction occurred when both parties came to believe that the exchange was reciprocally worth the trade in more complex trade networks and early civilizations across the globe.
• Monetized economy: Money developed when qualitative values for trade items transitioned into quantitative values, such that an accounting system was created to keep track of debits and credits. This occurred when more complex trade networks and early civilizations transitioned to, or were conquered by, larger civilizations.
• Commodified economy: An economy becomes commodified when monetized, trade item, economies transform the value of human and animal labor into monetary terms. Furthermore, people themselves become commodities within the institutions of chattel slavery, indentured servitude, women-as-property, and currently, human identities are defined by what they own or have power-over. This is the condition of global capitalism.
• Diverse web of life: Healthy ecosystems (and by extension, human-participating, ecosystems) require a diverse web of multiple species across the spectrum of living organisms that are adapted to a particular ecological niche.
• Mutual aid: Healthy ecosystems (and by extension, human-participating, ecosystems) require an undercurrent of mutual aid, for the long-term sustainability of ecosystems; even though there will be a certain level of predation, as part the natural management of species’ overpopulations.

Questions:

1. What is the distinction between a scarcity-oriented economy and an abundance-oriented economy?

Modern civilization has generated a scarcity-oriented economy where human talents, resources, or commodities that are scarce are valued higher than those talents, resources, or commodities that are abundant. Within this paradigm, undeveloped nature is not as valuable as developed civilization and its artifacts. This devaluing of nature undergirds the conflict between natural ecosystems and civilized ecosystems.

In contrast, ancestral hunting and gathering economies appear to have been—and continue to be—much more abundance-oriented economies, which reflect the dynamics of natural ecosystems. This is not to say that there is no sense of abundance in modern economies, nor is it to say that scarcity never occurs in ancestral economies or natural ecosystems. Rather, I am suggesting that our modern global economy tends to confer value on that which is scarce, whereas ancestral economies tend to confer value on that which is abundant.

In modern societies, value is constructed in terms of scarcity in the following way. If something is scarce and useful, then it is highly valued as a trade item. If something is abundant and useful, then it is not highly valued as a trade item. For example, in the labor market, if one has a skill that is scarce and useful (CEO, world-class athlete), that skill is highly valued and traded for other items of high value (money and stock). On the other hand, if one’s skill is perceived to be abundantly possessed in the population (child care, unskilled labor), then it is not valued highly for trade, and is traded for items of low value (minimum wage, at best).

2. Can both scarcity and abundance be highly valued?

Yes. In ancestral societies, value is constructed in the following way. If something is scarce and useful, then its value symbolizes one of the special strengths of the tribe–a rare gift of nature to be protected for the good of the tribe. As an example, an eagle feather is rare to Northwest Native Americans, therefore it is protected for sacred rituals, and its possession symbolizes strength, conferring value on the entire tribe. On the other hand, if something is abundant and useful, then it is also considered sacred and highly valued highly, to be shared throughout the community, as an abundant gift of nature that sustains the tribe, ensuring its long-term survival. As an example, salmon was historically abundant to Northwest Native Americans and continues to be understood as a sacred gift of nature’s abundance when stocks are numerous. A strong salmon run symbolizes ecosystem and tribal health. The much weaker salmon runs today reflect ecosystem and tribal sickness.

3. What is the contrast between today’s monetized economies and ancestral gift economies?

The contrast between modern and ancestral societies appears to be the same as the difference between monetized economies and gift economies. In monetized economies, scarcity is most valued and in gift economies, abundance is most valued. Certainly, modern societies have some gift activities: holiday giving and inheritance. And ancestral societies have some trade activities. However, trade dominates value generation in modern societies and gifts dominate value generation in ancestral societies

Interestingly, both conceptions of value collide in certain contemporary issues. In the timber/ancient forest crisis, trees, as timber, are seen as trade items whose value increases through scarcity and decreases by abundance. Whereas trees, as ancient forests, are seen as gifts whose value decreases by scarcity and increases by abundance. In the labor market, childcare, as a trade item, has low value in abundance–whereas childcare, as a crucially important community-strengthening gift, has high value in abundance.

4. Does it matter if the gift economies of indigenous/ancestral people are more natural?

On the view of evolutionary mutual aid, it appears that gift economies are more natural than monetized economies, and are therefore more in harmony with ecosystem health, safety and community. On the other hand, it seems that monetized economies are more artificial and are in disharmony with ecosystem health, safety and community. Another way of characterizing this disharmony is to say that monetized economies help generate violence against nature.

5. How do monetized economies generate violence towards nature?

To support this contention, we must first look at how gift economies are natural. In a natural ecosystem, each species depends on the diverse web of life that connects them (also known as “mutual aid”). In this way, each species both gives to the ecosystem and receives from the ecosystem. If a species is abundant, then its abundance generates a gift of fertility to the entire system. A rich salmon run provides fertility to the river ecosystem and to any life that feeds on the salmon.

However, if one species begins to dominate an ecosystem, it can undermine the diversity of the ecosystem. In island ecosystems, this sort of single-species domination occasionally occurs, and an unhealthy ecosystem, lacking in diversity, devolves. This kind of anti-diversity violence can occur in island ecosystems, but it is generally restricted to small, marginalized ecosystems. It seems that the general case in nature is to preserve diversity by mutual aid, through the gifts of abundance. In island ecosystems, anti-diversity violence, in the form of over-predation, has a tendency to rebalance itself through mutual aid.

An example such rebalancing was the overpopulation of invasive rabbits on San Juan Island that led to predation and disease, so that the rabbit population was reduced to sustainable levels, though as an invasive species (introduced by farmers), rabbits might continue to pose a threat to the island ecosystem. Similarly, invasive mountain goats are being removed from the Olympic National Forest, and relocated to the Mt. Rainier National Forest, where they are native because they are a threat to the natural ecosystems found in the Olympic National Forest.

The key ecological principle is that species diversity and mutual aid keeps the ecosystem in balance, so that one species is not allowed to dominate and reduce the health of the ecosystem. This makes one wonder about the health of the planet’s ecosystem, now that human beings have dominated so many regional ecosystems.

6. In what other ways do monetized economies generate violence?

Monetized economies are artificial and anti-natural in the following way. Species diversity can only occur in a natural ecosystem that has abundant resources. If those resources become scarce, then species diversity is destroyed and ecosystem health is marginalized. Monetized economies extract abundant resources because they are cheap and transform them into scarcer, useful products that are more valuable. This creates the win-win trade sequence of capitalism where both the extraction of abundant resources and the synthesis of scarce products create seemingly endless profit. However, it is just this profit taking that generates the depletion of ecosystem health. This certainly seems like a kind of violence toward the ecosystem, which in turn is a kind of violence toward life on this planet.

In human resource communities, monetized economies also generate violence in being anti-community, and encouraging a view of human flourishing that is adversarial and that marginalizes populations without access to sustainable resources. Abundant labor supplies are extracted because they are cheap and are used to transform resources into privately owned, scarcer products that are more valuable for trade. This creates the trade sequence of capitalism where the extraction of cheap and abundant labor resources and the synthesis of scarce products create surplus value or profit. However, it is just this profit taking that generates the depletion of community health. This can be considered violence toward the community because it devalues abundant labor simply because it is abundant. Often labor is so abundant that it is worthless–unemployment underscores this worthlessness. When people, or populations, are considered worthless, then they are shamed, angry, hostile, and potentially violent.

7. How can we improve the planet’s ecosystems, given the disharmony between natural and artificial ecosystems?

The violence and disharmony between human-centered ecosystems and natural ecosystems must be dramatically reduced. It should be obvious that runaway greenhouse gases, climate change, pollution, species extinction, and destroyed natural ecosystems signal an impending catastrophic change for life on earth. Humans have created an unsustainable, artificial psycho-social-economic ecosystem which is clearly not compatible with the way that natural ecosystems function. We must find a way to realign our way of life with the way that nature has thrived for millennia upon millennia. Economically, I suggest that we question the anti-nature characteristics of commodity capitalism that not only threaten global ecosystems, but undermine the dignity, integrity, autonomy, and security of human beings, even as it tries to sell us on the grandeur of modernity and consumerism.

8. Where do we start this “realignment with natural ecosystems”?

For me, I believe that traditional indigenous/ancestral societies/tribe/bands offer insight into ways to realign ourselves with nature. Unfortunately, these societies have often needed to adapt to commodity capitalism to such a degree that they have lost some of their own connection to natural ecosystems.

I once talked with a Native woman, who worked with Native and non-Native communities to help them maintain sustainable forests. She was disheartened to find that Natives have often been pushed to put their forests at dire risk by over cutting trees on slopes that will be hard to replant.

We can also find ways to realign dominant culture to nature through the ecological sciences, whose premise is that only natural ecosystem principles are truly sustainable.

9. How can we learn from traditional Native and ancestral economies, as well as recommendations from environmental science?

We can learn from the cultural and academic resources offered by indigenous/ancestral history, philosophy, and practices. As an example, in some Northwest Native American tribes, the potlatch is a gift-giving ritual that takes personal wealth and transforms it into social wealth. It is just this spirit of giving that can help regenerate ecosystem diversity, community safety, and social health. Also, most colleges and universities have environmental studies programs, and there are libraries that offer helpful texts on sustainability and ecosystem realignment.

10. What are the objections to the analysis that I have just given?

Perhaps, the most obvious objection to what I am suggesting about abundance, scarcity and violence is that all economies and ecologies as well, fall on a continuum between abundance and scarcity, trading and gifting. Indigenous tribes regularly deforested the Willamette Valley through controlled fires, so that they could hunt more easily. Northwest tribes also traded extensively with other, sometimes quite distant, tribes. Modern societies, such as the USA, give massive amounts of foreign and humanitarian aid. Ecosystems transition through cycles of natural abundance and scarcity, with no obvious bias toward one or the other. Species react quite differently in those different contexts. Whole cultures can be conditioned in quite contrasting ways because of the pattern nature imposes on habitat.

My initial response to this objection is that either my theory fits the data or it does not fit the data. This confirmation or disconfirmation requires a good bit of research and study. On the other hand, we can speculate about the goodness of abundance and the evil of scarcity, without considering all of the data. We can also critique the health of economies and ecosystems in terms of the role of scarcity and abundance. It is in this manner that a broad analysis can be useful. However, any theoretical work, of this sort, must face the context of historical fact. So, objections based on the facts of the matter must always be respected.

11. Did Adam Smith suggest that capitalism is a win/win exchange?

As Adam Smith pointed out, trade between equals is a win-win for both buyer and seller. He suggested that buyers value the product they buy more than the amount of money they spend. Likewise, sellers value the money they are given more than the product they sell. Another way of putting this is that buyers find that the product they buy is more useful than keeping the money they spend; and sellers find the money more useful than the product they sell. Presumably, the buyer has money to spend, and the seller has products to sell. So, this arrangement is tidy and beneficial, and the hallmark of original ideas about capitalism. Unfortunately, the “trade between equals” idea is not the case now, and even Adam Smith had worries about it when he was writing because working class labor does not have enough money to spend (and must borrow from banks), and the wealthy have many products to sell through the financial, ownership, resource, product, and service markets that they own and control. What started as an idea of a win-win economy has devolved into a win-win for the rich and a lose-lose for the poor, with a layer of financial insecurity for all who must live within commodity capitalism.

Further Questions:

1. To what degree are gifts and nonmonetary trade current alternatives to our monetized economy?

2. How do people become so commodified that they need to constantly sell themselves to others or to dominate and demonize others?

3. How is money an oppressive amorality?

4. What if we only needed money for luxuries, and all necessities were free?

5. What economies are based on renewable cycles and relationships?