Sacred Economics: Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition by [Charles Eisenstein]
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Sacred Economics: Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition Kindle Edition
by Charles Eisenstein (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
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Sacred Economics traces the history of money from ancient gift economies to modern capitalism, revealing how the money system has contributed to alienation, competition, and scarcity, destroyed community, and necessitated endless growth. Today, these trends have reached their extreme—but in the wake of their collapse, we may find great opportunity to transition to a more connected, ecological, and sustainable way of being.
This book is about how the money system will have to change—and is already changing—to embody this transition. A broadly integrated synthesis of theory, policy, and practice, Sacred Economics explores avant-garde concepts of the New Economics, including negative-interest currencies, local currencies, resource-based economics, gift economies, and the restoration of the commons. Author Charles Eisenstein also considers the personal dimensions of this transition, speaking to those concerned with "right livelihood" and how to live according to their ideals in a world seemingly ruled by money. Tapping into a rich lineage of conventional and unconventional economic thought, Sacred Economics presents a vision that is original yet commonsense, radical yet gentle, and increasingly relevant as the crises of our civilization deepen.
About the Imprint:
EVOLVER EDITIONS promotes a new counterculture that recognizes humanity's visionary potential and takes tangible, pragmatic steps to realize it. EVOLVER EDITIONS explores the dynamics of personal, collective, and global change from a wide range of perspectives. EVOLVER EDITIONS is an imprint of North Atlantic Books and is produced in collaboration with Evolver, LLC.
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Length: 497 pages Word Wise: Enabled Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled
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Editorial Reviews
Review
Sacred Economics:
"This brilliant and beautifully written book is an indispensable must-read for all those who believe our economic system is terminally sick and in need of radical, sacred rehaul. Charles Eisenstein has the great gift of being able to make complex ideas both thrilling and inspiring. I hope this book begins a serious, worldwide conversation on how we can reinvent our attitude to money."
—Andrew Harvey, author of The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism
"While political pundits, financial analysts and Occupiers fumble on how to transcend the intensifying global financial crisis, Eisenstein is trailblazing bold new ideas and possibilities for how we conduct monetary exchange."
—Jonathan Phillips, Huffington Post blog
"If you want a convincing account of just how deep the shift in our new axial age is and must be, look no further than this brilliant book by Charles Eisenstein, one of the deepest integrative thinkers active today."
—Michel Bauwens, founder of the P2P Foundation
"With his breadth of knowledge, enthusiasm, commitment, diligence, and sensitivity, Charles has become a beacon of hope for others. Your heart and mind will be opened by this treasure of a book that shines with wisdom of crucial importance to our troubled world today."
—Kamran Mofid, founder of the Globalisation for the Common Good Initiative
“[Sacred Economics] meticulously explains why our current system will inevitably give rise to cyclical and worsening economic crises. [Eisenstein] exposes the myths and lies that sustain power structure, the social and spiritual devastation in which we are all complicit, and lays the foundation for a way of thinking that can restore hope and help us emerge to a positive future. … Eisenstein’s book provides some of the most creative and hopeful ideas out there.”
—New Consciousness Review
“[Charles Eisenstein] puts his money where his mouth is. Sacred Economics: Money, Gift and Society in the Age of Transition is published under a Creative Commons copyright. … This arrangement, similar to that of open-source software, is a tiny sample of the economic system that Eisenstein predicts for our future. … Of course, a new economy means the old one needs to go. That would be scary news if not for Eisenstein’s optimistic way of describing the transition. He effectively argues that when we dismantle monetization, we give birth to community. Together, we can help noble impulses become profitable enterprises. Money may have caused our biggest problems, but redefining it could help us solve those same problems.”
—Grid Magazine
"'If anything is sacred in this world, it is surely not money.' So says Charles Eisenstein, who believes that people can act outside of the money economy, despite the power it has over their lives."
—Foreword Reviews
"Eisenstein is no revolutionary or anarchist. In fact, he’s an evolutionary. While reading Sacred Economics, I realized I had not achieved an objective relationship with our money system. I don’t have money. It has me."
—Common Ground
Also by Charles Eisenstein:
The Ascent of Humanity:
"Brilliant and original, with great depth of insight and understanding, Eisenstein's Ascent of Humanity easily ranks with the works of such giants of our age as David Bohm, Julian Jaynes, Jean Gebser, Whitehead. It is a profoundly serious, indeed somber portrait of our times, even as it opens a door of honest hope amidst the dark destiny we have woven about us. Accept the challenge of this major accomplishment and discover the light shining within it."
—Joseph Chilton Pearce, author of The Crack in the Cosmic Egg, Magical Child, Evolution's End, and The Biology of Transcendence
"Quite marvelous, a hugely important work... This book is truly needed in this time of deepening crisis."
—John Zerzan, author of Future Primitive and Elements of Refusal
About the Author
Charles Eisenstein is a teacher, speaker, and writer focusing on themes of civilization, consciousness, money, and human cultural evolution. His writings on the web magazine Reality Sandwich have generated a vast online following; he speaks frequently at conferences and other events, and gives numerous interviews on radio and podcasts.
Writing in Ode magazine's "25 Intelligent Optimists" issue, David Korten (author of When Corporations Rule the World) called Eisenstein "one of the up-and-coming great minds of our time."
Eisenstein graduated from Yale University in 1989 with a degree in Mathematics and Philosophy, and spent the next ten years as a Chinese-English translator. He currently lives in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and serves on the faculty of Goddard College. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.
Product details
File Size: 1851 KB
Print Length: 497 pages
Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1583943978
Publisher: North Atlantic Books (July 12, 2011)
Publication Date: July 12, 2011
Sold by: Amazon.com Services LLC
Language: English
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4.6 out of 5 stars
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sacred economics charles eisenstein negative interest economic system must read interest rates chicago school money system natural resources beautiful world sacred economy social and environmental important book wishful thinking goods and services well researched karl marx average person material world well written
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Dick_Burkhart
4.0 out of 5 stars Eloquent and Surprisingly Practical but with Some Lapses
Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2015
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Eisenstein’s passionate and eloquent book is truly a gift to us. Reading it, I often thought, this guy really gets it – about limits-to-growth and the need to downsize. Then suddenly, I would be floating in a never-never-land of New Age fancy and affluence.
For example, he frequently uses the word “abundance” despite the obvious lack of abundance in the de-growing economy that he knows is coming, an economy vastly reduced in size and consumption. He disparages techno-utopianism even while suggesting that perpetual motion machines will yield all the energy we’ll ever need (p. 443). He opposes income taxes and never even mentions wealth taxes, despite the implied plutocratic governance and the kinds of social dysfunction from extreme inequality documented in the book The Spirit Level. Nor does he discuss unearned income from monopolistic practices or speculation. Somehow a new gift culture of non-accumulation and non-profit is supposed to take over, even without any legal sanctions or penalties to prevent abuses.
But if you skip over such lapses, Eisenstein has a number of practical policy recommendations for the way down, based on solid readings in several fields. These include negative interest rates to keep money circulating and prevent concentration of wealth, taxing unearned rents on property and resources of all kinds, carbon and pollution taxes, a “social dividend” or basic income for all, more expensive but fewer and more durable and repairable goods, voluntary donations instead of fixed pricing, internet based work and credit systems, and meaningful rather than regimented work.
Eisenstein fully understands the need to reduce the interest rate to below the growth rate to decrease inequality, just like Piketty (who refers to “return on capital” instead of interest rate). This also prevents inflation in a contracting economy and provides an incentive to postpone exploiting resources that will be more valuable in the future, such as depleting fossil fuels and minerals. Even Keynes thought Silvio Gesell’s proposal for negative interest had merit. Eisenstein wisely suggests a fully transparent and traceable digital currency that would automatically decay in value according to this negative interest rate. The result is smoothly declining material wealth if all goes well, though in a typical contradiction he covers all bases by suggesting that there would also be a short dark age of “facism, civil unrest, and war” (p. 439)
This is an important book for an audience of a certain environmental and spiritual bent, as it takes very seriously the “collapse part of the phrase “ecological overshoot and collapse”.
File Size: 1851 KB
Print Length: 497 pages
Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1583943978
Publisher: North Atlantic Books (July 12, 2011)
Publication Date: July 12, 2011
Sold by: Amazon.com Services LLC
Language: English
---
Customer reviews
4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
---
Write a customer review
Read reviews that mention
sacred economics charles eisenstein negative interest economic system must read interest rates chicago school money system natural resources beautiful world sacred economy social and environmental important book wishful thinking goods and services well researched karl marx average person material world well written
Top Reviews
Top reviews from the United States
Dick_Burkhart
4.0 out of 5 stars Eloquent and Surprisingly Practical but with Some Lapses
Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2015
Verified Purchase
Eisenstein’s passionate and eloquent book is truly a gift to us. Reading it, I often thought, this guy really gets it – about limits-to-growth and the need to downsize. Then suddenly, I would be floating in a never-never-land of New Age fancy and affluence.
For example, he frequently uses the word “abundance” despite the obvious lack of abundance in the de-growing economy that he knows is coming, an economy vastly reduced in size and consumption. He disparages techno-utopianism even while suggesting that perpetual motion machines will yield all the energy we’ll ever need (p. 443). He opposes income taxes and never even mentions wealth taxes, despite the implied plutocratic governance and the kinds of social dysfunction from extreme inequality documented in the book The Spirit Level. Nor does he discuss unearned income from monopolistic practices or speculation. Somehow a new gift culture of non-accumulation and non-profit is supposed to take over, even without any legal sanctions or penalties to prevent abuses.
But if you skip over such lapses, Eisenstein has a number of practical policy recommendations for the way down, based on solid readings in several fields. These include negative interest rates to keep money circulating and prevent concentration of wealth, taxing unearned rents on property and resources of all kinds, carbon and pollution taxes, a “social dividend” or basic income for all, more expensive but fewer and more durable and repairable goods, voluntary donations instead of fixed pricing, internet based work and credit systems, and meaningful rather than regimented work.
Eisenstein fully understands the need to reduce the interest rate to below the growth rate to decrease inequality, just like Piketty (who refers to “return on capital” instead of interest rate). This also prevents inflation in a contracting economy and provides an incentive to postpone exploiting resources that will be more valuable in the future, such as depleting fossil fuels and minerals. Even Keynes thought Silvio Gesell’s proposal for negative interest had merit. Eisenstein wisely suggests a fully transparent and traceable digital currency that would automatically decay in value according to this negative interest rate. The result is smoothly declining material wealth if all goes well, though in a typical contradiction he covers all bases by suggesting that there would also be a short dark age of “facism, civil unrest, and war” (p. 439)
This is an important book for an audience of a certain environmental and spiritual bent, as it takes very seriously the “collapse part of the phrase “ecological overshoot and collapse”.
Other authors and progressive politicians suggest that it will be an easy transition to a sustainable economy if we just replace fossil fuels by renewable energy.
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29 people found this helpful
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Brandon Pearce
5.0 out of 5 stars Transformative!
Reviewed in the United States on February 5, 2019
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I've read many books on money over the years, while most contain great ideas and insights, few have truly changed me. This is one that has. While I'm still processing much of what is in Sacred Economics, the spirit of the gift that underlies its message has left me feeling less more grateful, more generous, more connected, and more safe. To me, this is priceless, and I suppose it's what I've been seeking all along through accumulating my own degree of wealth, which has been unable to satisfy in these ways. So, thank you Charles for sharing your gift with us.
3 people found this helpful
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Taylor Ellwood
5.0 out of 5 stars An alternative perspective on money
Reviewed in the United States on January 31, 2020
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This is one of the most thought provoking books I’ve read about finances and wealth and what I like is that the author is seeking to help people establish a healthier relationship with money, but also community. While I don’t agree with all of his premises, the book made me think and try some things out with how I handle finances and money and how I give back to the community I am part of. I like his approach to gifting and how that can work and I know I will read this book again, because its something which necessarily challenges the narrative of wealth we know and experience in today’s culture.
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Joshua A.
5.0 out of 5 stars Life-Changing!!! Everyone needs to read this book!!!
Reviewed in the United States on September 2, 2017
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This book is blowing my mind!!! I've always wanted to more deeply understand our money system, that so profoundly affects us all. The author is a genius (not just because his name is Eisenstein), and he explains our economy and its relationship to society with such breadth and depth of understanding and wisdom that I literally can't believe how good it is. A rare gem!!!
7 people found this helpful
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John Renesch - author, The Great Growing Up
5.0 out of 5 stars Warning: Be Prepared to Think
Reviewed in the United States on November 12, 2012
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This book addresses the key dysfunctions in the grandaddy of all social systems - the one that trumps all other systems and dominates our culture - the economic system. The author makes a convincing case for how much we trust our economic system and how it is in the final stages of imploding on itself and wreaking havoc with so many people who rely so heavily on it.
Sobering to read but read it anyway! There are answers here that can save lots of needless suffering but it will take the rigor to understand the beast that occupies us in order for us to transcend it and build a new more sustainable economic system.
A must read for any thinking person who cares about the future our kids and grand kids will inherit.
12 people found this helpful
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B Lynch
5.0 out of 5 stars I can't stop recommending this book to others
Reviewed in the United States on June 8, 2013
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There is a growing concern about where we as a (human) society are headed, what we are doing to the planet and in relation to those two points what type of future we can expect. Eisenstein directly addresses these concerns and offers a compelling new direction. He doesn't preach or prophesies his ideas, he simply makes a suggestion. The basis of these suggestions is heavily entrenched in economic and monetary policies, however, they take on a much more all encompassing perspective than the current economic and monetary policies implemented by countries today. He also directly addresses the very rational skepticism of his ideas and ultimately comes forth with a vision for our world that is as solid as anything I can imagine. For a synopsis of the major points in the book check out the book's website and watch the video. It does a better job explaining his thought process than I could in this review. I'll conclude by saying I can't help but recommend this book to others, it seems incredibly relevant in the context of many conversations I have daily. I truly hope that these ideas take root and come to fruition.
8 people found this helpful
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Robin Lovelace
5.0 out of 5 stars Degrowth is the solution: here's why
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 7, 2013
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I wrote a review for this book in my local magazine NowThen (Google "Sacred Economics, NowThen, Sheffield" for the full version complete with artwork: it's in issue 59). Here is an extract, plus some closing thoughts (Amazon has passed my censorship test if this gets published - due to reference to free (Creative Commons licensed) versions of this book):
"[... Ecotechnic Future: Envisioning a Post-Peak World provided a convincing vision of the future based on the disintegration of advanced civilisation due resource depletion.] The problem is that industrial civilisation shows no sign of slowing down, let alone of pressing the auto-disintegrate button any-time soon. On the contrary, hyper capitalism has proved to be a tough old bugger, akin to Wile E Coyote from Looney Tunes; it takes a hammering from every side yet always comes back to terrorise us again. Even after its founding assumptions are disproved and worldwide waves of protest decry its idiocy, the bastard just won't die. Land-grabs, adverts targeting children and new oil drilling techniques ensure that Greer's expectation, that the metaphorical Wile E will finally just top himself, is optimistic to say the least.
Sacred Economics by Charles Eisenstein is equally visionary, but starts from a different premise; the monetary machine that directs human affairs has gone AWOL and now benefits no-one, least of all the degraded psychopaths at the top, who try in vain to control the beast. Like Greer, Eisenstein encourages de-monetising your life, focussing instead on true wealth; the people and environment that surround you. Unlike Greer, he believes in creating a much better world: "Are we so broken that we would aspire to anything less than a sacred world?"
This may seem utopian, but Sacred Economics provides pragmatic solutions at every level. Individuals can replace monetary relationships with real ones, buy less and re-use more. Communities can set-up social enterprises. And, when the current batch of growth-obsessed politicians get booted out of office, nations can implement a raft of sensible measures to exorcise the financial demons from our economy.
Sacred Economics is a cracking read that I cannot recommend highly enough. If you're not sure about beg-borrow-or-buying such a chunky lump of paper, you're free to grab every chapter of it from the internet, where it has been placed in its entirety under a Creative Commons licence at sacred-economics.com"
To this I would add that Eisenstein strays a little too far into the "sacred". (One example: "By the same token, by fostering within ourselves a realization of the sacredness inherent in materiality, and by aligning our work with that sacredness, we lay the social and psychic foundation of an economy in which more and more of the things we make and do for each other are beautiful, personal, alive, and ensouled." - Even ignoring the fact he invented the last word in that sentence it is nigh on possible to understand!) At this stage Eisenstein would have been well advised to stick to the concrete economic and pragmatic reasons why his suggestions are sensible. But this should not stop anyone from buying (or downloading, for free from his website) this generally very well written book. Clearly infinite economic growth is not feasible, and this book provides the best "non-collapse" narrative for dealing with it that I have read. Tim Jackson's "Prosperity without growth" ( Prosperity without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet free online) provides the best political response I've read, and this links well with an emerging political/activist movement of Degrowth.
In summary please get this book and spread the message. You will not regret it for one moment.
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19 people found this helpful
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Subhasha
5.0 out of 5 stars Time to see the truth
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 25, 2012
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What is difficult to understand in todays world is the fact that governments and corporations continue to "flog" the concept of growth or GDP, while we are all aware that we live on a finite planet. Charles Eisenstien very succinctly points this out together with many other of the monetary ills. He then offers several suggestions how we can make changes in ways that are closer to the better nature of the human spirit and at the same time practical. He recognises that this is not an overnight "fix", and is all part of the hopeful emerging greater consciousness of the human being. Yet anyone who wishes to start today there are suggestions. His analogy to the human race as having acted like children for several millenium, just taking and the fact it is time we mature into adults and start to give as we do to our children is powerful and makes a mature person sit up.
Every banker and corporate mogal should be made to read this book and if they still believe in thier ways then I would suggest councelling.
20 people found this helpful
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Andrew
5.0 out of 5 stars Review
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 3, 2018
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Fantastic book which I highly recommend to anyone and everyone. Superbly written and really struck a chord with me. It's like the author was giving words to my own thoughts and inclinations that I was otherwise unable to do so before reading it.
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Andrew
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 11, 2020
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Very happy customer fast delivery great product 👍
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Ms Anne Khan
5.0 out of 5 stars Very Interesting
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 29, 2013
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I am still "getting through" this book as its quite deep and needs to be digested. I am enjoying reading our relationship to money which at the the end of the day is just energy. Its how we perceive its role in our lives that makes it a pleasure or an angst . . . well worth reading . . .
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