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