What might a permaculture economic model look like?
In resonse to a request about ethical invesntment I have dusted down my economics lecture from the PDC, something I have been thinking about and working on for several years and presented these ideas in a slightly different context. As much as we are all caught up on the chase for money and livelihood we rarely stop and think about this strange thing called economics that seems to shape everything in the world around us.
It can be argued that climate change is the greatest market failure, the tendency to externalise the costs of production by both driving down or eliminating labour costs and dumping waste into the environment is the feature within capitalism which has bought us to the brink of our own destruction. We need an economic rationale which values natural resources above all else, one which build cohesive community, one which binds us together in common cause, not that pits us against each other in a never ending fierce competition for dwindling resources.
The economics of regeneration should be a central idea of our 21st century journey, leaving the neo-liberal nighmare of the late 20th century far behind us.