Spiritual Economics

A Step in the Right Direction

Today I accidentally re-discovered the Slow Money movement. Perhaps you have heard of the slow food movement that originated (I believe) in Italy as a sort of reaction/protest to the fast-food way of eating. Of course Italy is perhaps the setting and background where graceful dining and leisurely gourmet meals would be valued. In any case it may be that slow food spawned the idea of slow money. I don't know; I'm just speculating here. 

Regardless, the slow money movement is the idea that perhaps money doesn't have to return as much as possible in as short a time as possible. The idea that perhaps a reasonable return on money invested in local business, and particularly farms and wholesome, healthy food production, is a great idea, and one that can do much to give us both good food, and local social security. People helping each other for the reason that it ought to be done, and even more important than the idea of producing a great profit. Nice!

What do we see in this formula that is absent from Wall Street? Sattva-guna - the influence of the material quality of goodness, with the result that people and the world are uplifted. And what is missing in this approach that is present in Wall Street? Tamo-guna - the destructive influence of the material quality of ignorance. This is what we might call the green shoots of the rising of consciousness. Just as in spring we first see the shoots of daffodils and realize that winter is now behind us, such green shoots of higher consciousness are an indication that the pervasive and oppressive modes of passion and ignorance are lifting. Sort of a spring of consciousness!

Slow money promotes the idea that money should work for people instead of people working for money.

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"Slow Money could not be more relevant to our economic 

situation. We need true, grounded, fundamentally different 

approaches to investing in our agriculture and in our 

communities." 

 – Clifford C. David, Jr, president, Heritage Conservancy

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The Slow Money Principles

In order to enhance food security, food safety and food access; improve nutrition and health; promote cultural, ecological and economic diversity; and accelerate the transition from an economy based on extraction and consumption to an economy based on preservation and restoration, we do hereby affirm the following Slow Money Principles:

I. We must bring money back down to earth.

II. There is such a thing as money that is too fast, companies that are too big, finance that is too complex. Therefore, we must slow our money down -- not all of it, of course, but enough to matter.

III. The 20th Century was the era of Buy Low/Sell High and Wealth Now/Philanthropy Later—what one venture capitalist called “the largest legal accumulation of wealth in history.” The 21st Century will be the era of nurture capital, built around principles of carrying capacity, care of the commons, sense of place and non-violence.

IV. We must learn to invest as if food, farms and fertility mattered. We must connect investors to the places where they live, creating vital relationships and new sources of capital for small food enterprises.

V. Let us celebrate the new generation of entrepreneurs, consumers and investors who are showing the way from Making A Killing to Making a Living.

VI. Paul Newman said, "I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer who puts back into the soil what he takes out." Recognizing the wisdom of these words, let us begin rebuilding our economy from the ground up, asking:

• What would the world be like if we invested 50% of our assets within 50 miles of where we live?
• What if there were a new generation of companies that gave away 50% of their profits?
• What if there were 50% more organic matter in our soil 50 years from now?

Woody Tasch can be considered the founder of slow money. He is the author of the book Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money - Investing as if Food, Farms and Fertility Really Mattered, a title that borrows from E. F. Schumacher's essential Small is Beautiful - Economics as if People Mattered. In this short video he explains some more of the particulars of slow money, and there are a number of other videos explaining the whys and wherefores on YouTube, and of course have a look at the slow money website.

 

I ask why not free ourselves from the restrictions of money altogether? Why do we want to work within the confines of a system that is inherently flawed? Perhaps is too big a step for most people to take at once, so slow money is a step in the right direction. The time of Spiritual Economics may not be here just yet, but as concepts such as slow money develop they pave the way for the freedom of Spiritual Economics.