Family: Ecology's mediator with Economy

"For He is not a man like me, that I can answer Him, that we can take each other to court. Nor is there a mediator between us, to lay his hand upon us both." Job 9

 

Economy v Ecology

 It often feels like humanity's Economy and nature's Ecology are irreconcilable forces with nothing to connect them much less mediate apparently alternative claims and ideas. Even our best and brightest become frustrated with paradigms that seem to be functioning according to different rules. In fact, even making rules at all seems futile, since they become so voluminous in scope that nobody can understand much less consent and submit to them with anything resembling timely, informed, voluntary acceptance. We spoke about the emerging crisis of consensus in our last blog posting The Devaluation of Law.

The mediating role of Family

However ... if you believe our universe is organic in the sense of everything being connected directly or indirectly to everything else, there MUST be a link [or perhaps many] between economy and ecology which we have just not fully discovered or appreciated ... yet.

One way to discover and/or highlight that link is by taking several different approaches to the problems and looking at them together ... to stretch one's perspective ... and to see what is present in all [even if only by implication] but missing in consideration [or emphasis] from one or more.

I have recently done this with three excellent books:

• An Inconvenient Apocalypse, Wes Jackson and Robert Jensen, 2022
• The Free Market Family, Maxine Eichner,  2020
• Sacred Economics, Charles Eisenstein, 2011

What I found has been thought provoking for me. I hope it may give you pause to think as well.

Family: Ecology's mediator with Economy

The Devaluation of Law

 

"By whatever process it has become legitimate for government to engage in practices that, if performed by individuals, would be clearly recognized as theft, fraud, trespass, and even worse. This is law turned inside out."

Opting Out: "The Devaluation of Law", Gerrit Wormhoudt, c.1975, published by  Jameson Books

Parallel Failures ... common cause?

In a fascinating and prescient [for us in 2022] address given as the Moorman Memorial Lecture at Culver-Stockton College c.1975, noted Kansas jurist Gerrit Wormhoudt compared the decline in purchasing power of the US$ with what he proposed was a decline in the "value of law" in America.

His clear suspicion is that both devaluations arise from a common source, although he only briefly touches on this at the end of his remarks with the invitation ... "Is this not a question worth pondering?"

And, of course, the resounding answer is YES ... it IS worth pondering.

In that spirit, I encourage you to secure a copy of Wormhoudt's book and reread the collection of his thoughts accumulated in essays and addresses over a distinguished career and a well-examined life.

As a preface and encouragement to engaging Wormhoudt directly in the book, I offer this brief summary of my take-aways from his thoughts in Chapter 9: The Devaluation of Law* (Or . . . A Sophisticated Kind of Ignorance?). The truth of things is usually much simpler than our handlers would have us undertand.

The Devaluation of Law