Kristof Levandovski
Two economies
There are two economies - the one of love and the one of war.
The economy of love stems from the respect for life and protecting all its forms. The manifestations of life are every being’s body and mind which the economy of love cares for, as the body is the habitat and the source of life whilst the mind makes it possible to comprehend the economy of love and comply with its rules.
Each being occupies a certain place among others, interacting greatly with them within the field known as ecosystem. Caring for this place, for our own being, is essential for giving. When you neglect yourself and don’t fulfill your great potential, you can offer less to others. Only when you fully use your abilities, you get more than you need and than you can take care of your neighbours i.e. your ecosystem made up of all the beings who surround you. Their well-being testifies that you are at the right place - that’s where you can get your own well-being from. That is another extension of the understanding of the economy of love.
The nearest to you in your ecosystem is your family. The mind can effortlessly recognize the economy of love’s rules operating in the area of the family. The rules are simple - there is no money and the exchange of services takes place in public. If someone has tidied up the flat, all the family know about it. If someone is taken ill, all take care of them. Giving is always paid back in a way and no one wastes his or her energy to work out what will be their profit, when and in which currency. Well-being of a person who has been given something is also a social value, so if you are giving someone something, at the same time you are giving to yourself as a member of the community.
It is not true though, that if there is no book-keeping, no economy exists. On the contrary, it does exist, but I embraces the human’s life as a whole and not only their trade aspect. The “book-keeping” is realized by more excellent than computers - our minds. The economy of love is realized through mental and intuitive perception of how much people contribute to the community and how much they derive from it (in other words, whether they individually are balanced or disturbed in ecological respect). Assessment is made by every close member of the community and takes into account far more parameters than the most perfect systems of formal economy.
The well balanced human ecosystems (e.i. in which the whole man is considered and not only their marketing aspect) produce a large surplus of goods and services. Thanks to a fair exchange of that surplus with the neighbours, who also possess surplus, it is possible to multiply the wealth of life, to travel and surround yourself with beauty.
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On the other pole of mental creations of the mankind there is an economy worked out of individual greed and leading inevitably towards war. The economy of war comes down from the assumption that people represent separate and independent from each other beings whose basic task is to fight for gaining possibly the greatest amount of other people’s energy at the least expense of one’s own energy.
Possession is the main value of the economy of war. The more you possess the better is your understanding of the rules and at the same time you are becoming the economy of war reliable ally.
The basic process in education towards the economy of war is turning a blind eye by its participants to basically dishonest - according to any moral or democratic norms - though FORMALLY legal methods of multiplying wealth by a decreasing group of people who are privileged thanks to possessed capital surplus.
Despite plentiful scientific evidence confirming that it is impossible by present rules of game to break the debts deadlock by means of a constant and high rate of economic growth, this belief is publicly promoted by the majority of economists and politicians. It has become an element of the university canon and the main argument of advocates of the economy of war in spite of growing debt which all the nations and the majority of their citizens are getting into.
The economy of war does not count lost profits resulted from competition instead of cooperation. It does not come into account the basic assumption of the forthcoming information era: the whole is larger than the sum of composing it ‘scientific’ parts and the man is something more than the statistic number and a set of described up gens, and the humanity is something more than the financial statistics of its productivity.
The economy of war does not take into account the needs of an ecosystem which balance is necessary for any economy to be carried on. That is therefore a theory which destroys its own roots, threatening the existence of particular species, including mankind. Its only aim is the multiplication of individual wealth and the collective fear of the losers as well as the winners.
The result of subordinating economists’ activities to the rules of the economy of war is the spiral increase of violence and violent ways of counteracting it. The rich surround themselves with a wall. The economy of war is here a self-fulfilling prophesy. Defending the wall against those who have been legally robbed.
Kristof Levandovski
(translated from Polish by Malgorzata Orlik)